Futility
by butterfly ghost
Summary: Fraser is being stalked, and apart from his friend Ray nobody believes him.     Thanks to the always inspirational dS-Tiff for inspiration and helping thrash out plots.
1. Chapter 1

I thought that I was broken up with love, until I learned that he'd survived. The night had been pressing down on me, the weight of darkness on my eyes. Insomnia. It sounds so insignificant, that word, clinical. But it was my sole companion, broken by dizzy dreams that kept me from complete collapse. Night after night after day after night, thinking of everything we had put each other through. Thinking of his voice, of his lips, of his hands tangled in my hair.

In the instant of forgiveness he was gone. For one bright moment my heart had been glad, so glad, when he came to me, finally, running along that platform, arm stretched out, leaving everything behind.

But then that shot, that swift short stab through the air, meant for me, don't I know it. And his look of desolation as he fell.

That bullet pierced my heart, and it never did heal.

Oh, I thought I loved him. Lying in the dark, tears dribbling to my ears, my hands cupped to the arch of his cheeks, fingers tipped to the soft of his lips, kissing empty air.

Then I learned that he'd survived.

And oh, it was so cruel, so sour in the core of me, coiling like vomit. The thought of him still living there, in Chicago of all places, my man of the barren snows. He had held me from death, had bled his heat out into me to save me from the storm. How could he... how dared he survive without me? I could never have survived without him.

It washed back over me then, an ice borne flood, an endless desolation, and oh God, I remembered him leaving me, leaving me to justice, leaving me to law. And I had nothing but the wish for death, ten long years, ten years... and all my hopes were blasted by the snow.

God, how I hated him. I hated him as much as I loved him, as much as I hate and love myself. And to see his name in the paper, a hero, saving children, and statesmen, and little kittens from trees... for him to be living a life without me, for him to be a paragon, to show no pain... how I hated that. He should have bled for me. He should have bled and died for me. He should have bled for me like I bled for him.

I know it, I know it now, how much he bled. But all that I could see was how much I didn't matter to him. How his life went on and on without me, and I was naked in the storm.

...

Fraser was standing in his shirt sleeves at the Vecchio's kitchen counter, chopping ingredients, a look of earnest concentration on his face. Dief lay beneath the table, making plaintive yips.

"No, I'm sorry Diefenbaker, but you can't have any. Not yet... I'm attempting to prepare a culinary delight here, and you're not helping." Fraser glanced at the wolf, and fixed him with a schoolmaster's gaze. "Don't look at me like that. You're not exactly wasting away, you can wait till dinner is served." Dief turned onto his side, displaying his belly, letting out a yearning groan. "Oh please." Fraser clucked his tongue dismissively. "Now you're just embarrassing yourself."

"How's it going in there?" Ray stuck his head through the door, "I don't smell anything yet."

"Well, your mother's recipe says preparation time twenty minutes, but I must be doing something wrong, because this is taking a lot longer than expected."

"Let's see..." Ray stepped into the kitchen, and looked at his friend's progress. "Fraser," he pointed to a white tray with little mounds of herbs dotting it at regular intervals. It looked like a post modern artwork which someone with more money than sense would put on a sterile wall."Fraser, what's this?"

"Ah, yes," Fraser rubbed his eyebrow with his wrist, trying to keep onion off his face. "Well, the recipe calls for 'pinches' of several different herbs, and unfortunately though I know the term I'm not personally acquainted with what constitutes a pinch, hence the..." he gestured at the tray helplessly, "hence the experiment."

"Awh Fraser, all you have to do is bung the ingredients in a pot, add herbs to taste, let it simmer, then when it's done stir it through some pasta al dente and dollop it onto plates."

"It does sound easy when you put it that way." Fraser frowned, furrowing his brow. "However, 'to taste' is another exercise in imprecision, and cooking pasta al dente seems to be tricky since there's a narrow window in which to get it right..."

"Your Grandma never teach you how to cook?"

"On the contrary, she did, many good and nutritional things, and she taught me where to find food in nature, and the medicinal values of certain roots and herbs. It's just that I have discovered that most people don't appreciate her particular style of cooking. Though she did teach me how to make a very nice omelette."

"Your Grandma taught you how to boil roots and stuff?"

"Yes Ray, she did. Lichen, and mosses, fungi, barks, berries and so forth."

"And what to look for under rocks?"

"Yes Ray, she did."

"She sounds like a Strega."

Fraser glared pointedly at his friend. "I can assure you Ray, my Grandmother was not a witch."

"I meant it in a good way," Ray insisted.

"In a good way?"

"Yes."

"Okay then."

Ray watched with a smile on his face as Fraser continued to chop conscientiously. "Go on already, pour the veggies in the pan." Fraser bit his lower lip as he slid chopped onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and courgettes into a frying pan. They sizzled as they hit the olive oil. "Very good Fraser," Ray said "now, a pinch of oregano... awh jeez, Benny..." Fraser's hand was hovering uncertainly over the little mounds of experimental pinches. "Like this," Ray grabbed his friend's hand, brought it down over the oregano and closed the fingers in a pinch. "How hard was that? Now bring it over the pan, and voila..." he let go of the hand, and Benny released his fingers, allowing the herbs to fall into the sauce. "Now, do that again for your other pinches, tear up your basil, and just wing it when it comes to the pasta al dente."

"Thank you Ray."

"You're welcome." Fraser glanced hopefully at Ray. "Could you demonstrate a dash of red wine to me?"

…

"That smells really good." Frannie was in the kitchen doorway, wearing far less than was strictly wise and rather more makeup that was strictly necessary. Fraser had in the past considered telling her that she was pretty enough she didn't have to go to such lengths, but he suspected that his compliment might be misconstrued. Frannie was Ray's sister, and he didn't want to hurt her. Beneath that man eating exterior he suspected she had a vulnerable heart that had been hurt too many times.

And besides, dressed like this, with that predatory grin on her face, she scared him.

"Thank you kindly," he said, pouring pasta into a colander. Whether it was al dente or not he didn't know, but it certainly seemed cooked.

He was, however, very proud of the sauce.

The pasta drained he proceeded to empty it into the deep pan. He twirled carefully until the pasta was completely coated in glistening red. He shredded basil and sprinkled it in (he had been growing more confident with imprecisions by the minute) shook a medley of Italian cheese into the pan, ground pepper (to taste) then turned and started to serve the meal.

"Hey, everybody in here now!" Frannie's voice took on a hectoring tone as she called the family to the dining table. Ma Vecchio was the first through the door. It had been hard for her to give up her kitchen, even for an afternoon, but the dear boy had been so keen to cook for her. She walked straight up to Fraser and pinched his cheeks. "Oh you good boy, it smells delicious." She didn't mention, of course, that the pasta looked a little over done. A good sauce, and the love which had gone into the preparation would make up for that.

"Thank you Mrs Vecchio."

"Ma, Ma," she said, "call me Ma," and took the plate from Fraser.

"Yip!" Diefenbaker danced up on his back legs and got a face full of pasta. The contents of the plate slid on the floor, and Diefenbaker ecstatically wolfed it down.

Fraser looked at the ceiling and muttered. "You pay, and you pay, and you pay..."

…

Fortunately Ma Vecchio's recipes tended to the generous side, and despite Diefenbaker's infraction Fraser had cooked more than enough for everyone.

"Not bad for your first time out Benny," Ray conceded. He had been a bit nervous when Fraser had declared his ambition to cook for the family, but all things considered it was quite good. Better than the last meal Benny had cooked for him. Ray looked down at the pasta and had a quick flash back to bugs that had been scooped out from under a rock. For a moment he didn't feel too keen about the pasta... He shook the memory, and carried on eating. No need to make Benny feel insecure.

Benny was looking anything but insecure. He was beaming at the children with baby Connie on his knee, who was attempting, messily, to feed him. He had tomato sauce all over his face, and when he bent his head to kiss the baby she opened her mouth and started to suck his chin.

Frannie was gazing at them adoringly, and forgetting to eat.

"Do you not like the food, Francesca?" Benny looked anxious for a moment.

"Oh, yes, of course I do!" Frannie twisted pasta onto her fork, and ate like a trooper. "It's delicious."

Ray knew his sister, and could tell that she was thinking more about how delicious the cook was, and less about the meal.

He couldn't resist it. He plucked up an olive, and threw it at her head.

"Ray!" she turned towards him angrily, tore of a piece of bread and threw it across the table, hitting him in the eye.

Ray leant forward to grab a chunk of cheese, but his mother caught his hands before he could wreak any more havoc.

"Children, children," she said, "no fighting at the table. What must Benny think?"

Frannie and Ray scowled.

"He started it."

"She makes me behave like a child!"

"If you two don't behave I'm going to have to send you to your rooms."

The actual children at the table were besides themselves with laughter. Benny just looked puzzled.

It was a very good meal.

…

Meg Thatcher was processing paper work, and cursing the invention of the computer. It was supposed to be a labour saving device, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth. She would have asked Turnbull to help (he was actually quite good on the computer) but at the moment she didn't think she could stand him in the room with her. He simply refused to shut up about ice hockey and curling. Bad enough that she was stuck at a desk without him standing behind her providing a running sports commentary... She'd finally snapped at him, "I know I'm a Canadian, but I'm also a woman, so could you keep the boy talk to your free time?" And he'd made the mistake of admiringly stating, "yes Sir, I know that you're a woman..." For a moment she missed it, then her jaw dropped at the implication. She stared up at him with derision. He blanched when he realised what he'd said, but it was too late.

"Dismissed."

And he was going to stay dismissed until she could shake the creepy crawlies.

Well, when Ben... Constable Fraser... Ben, (she cleared her throat blushing at her own thoughts) when Fraser got here she would leave him with the computing. He'd probably whiz through it in no time flat.

Perhaps, she thought, she was being unfair to Turnbull. He was an odd little man, but she sensed no malice in him. After all, his comment had not been intended as a come on... the poor man wouldn't know how to make one. And she was sure that she'd made Fraser uncomfortable enough without meaning to. She'd certainly made herself uncomfortable.

Damn... she was thinking of him that way again...

There was a knock on the door. Perhaps Turnbull bringing her a cup of coffee in an attempt to ingratiate his way back into her good books. Well, she'd show mercy. It had been a mistake, that was all.

"Come in," she said, not looking up from her desk.

The door swung open, and she heard footsteps. She pursed her lips, and carried on typing for a moment longer. Making him wait would remind him who was in charge. Then she realised that the figure who had walked in wasn't talking. And she couldn't smell any coffee... It wasn't like Turnbull not to talk.

Looking up she saw the figure of Benton Fraser standing in front of her, in his brown uniform, hands folded solemnly behind his back. He looked at attention.

"At ease, Fraser," she said.

"Yes Sir, thank you Sir," he said, and did not move.

She sighed... this was probably her fault. He must be feeling quite uncomfortable around her at the moment. The more she thought of it the more she realised that she really should forgive Turnbull... just recently she had been the queen of inappropriate with Fraser. She had pretended that they were going out together for goodness sake, without warning him in advance, in order to shake a rapacious work superior. But didn't that make her Fraser's rapacious superior? Of all people she should know how uncomfortable unwanted sexual attraction could be. What a position to put him in. She cringed with embarrassment, thinking of the time when he had paint on his face, and she'd practically shoved that woman out of the way. What a fool she had made of herself... "we wipe our own personnel."

Oh dear. To quote Fraser. Even the way he didn't swear was so charming.

Stop thinking of him like that!

"I'm glad you're here, Constable," she said coolly, "I need somebody to type these files for me onto the computer. It's rather time consuming, and I have other duties to attend to..."

"Yes Sir."

She pushed her chair back and stood, moving round the table to give him room. He brushed against her as he took his seat, and she blushed right to the roots of her hair.

Oh, she really would have to apologise to Turnbull.

"Thank you Fraser," she said, crisply, betraying none of her dismay in her voice. As she left the room she heard his improbably swift typing.

She decided to take a break and go for a brisk walk.

She couldn't be out of there fast enough.

…

There was a tap on the door, and Fraser looked up. A rather dejected looking Turnbull was poking his head into the room.

"Inspector Thatcher's gone out, hasn't she?"

"Yes, yes she has."

"I'm afraid I rather offended her." Turnbull sniffed. "I said something rather silly... well then, I often say something rather silly, I suppose I am a bit silly, but this was particularly silly. Sillier than usual." Turnbull sighed. "I'm so silly."

Fraser blinked. All he could glean from this conversation was the repetition of the word 'silly'.

"I'm sorry... what are we talking about?"

"I've ruined my career," Turnbull moaned.

"I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding..."

Mercifully at this point the phone rang.

"Canadian Consulate, Constable Benton Fraser, liaison officer speaking."

"Yeah, hi Fraser, it's me."

Ray usually didn't bother phoning Benny at work. If it was important he would normally just turn up and drag him off to wherever the fire was.

"What is it Ray?"

"We've got a guy at the station, he's in bad shape, says he needs to speak to you."

"Now?" Fraser looked at the heap of papers he still had to transcribe to the computer. He would be glad of an excuse to get away, but his conscience had to be sure it was merited. "I'm rather busy."

"I really think this guy's in trouble. Why don't you just ask the dragon to let you go and liaise? It's what liaison officers do, isn't it?"

"She's not here."

"Even better. Whatever you're doing you can leave it to Turnbull."

Fraser eyed Turnbull, who was looking abjectly at the floor.

"All right Ray, I'll be there."

He hung up the phone, rubbed his forehead, then made to leave the room. Seeing Turnbull's downcast expression he paused for a moment. He didn't really know what Turnbull was worried about, but he sought to reassure him. "I'm sure it will be all right," he said. "The Inspector is a reasonable woman."

"Thank you Constable. I hope I'm still in the employ of the Canadian government when you get back."

"Uhm... do you mind taking over here while I'm gone? Perhaps the Inspector will be impressed by your diligence and decide to overlook whatever... silliness you may have been involved in?"

"Thank you." Turnbull straightened, like a man before his execution bravely facing down the firing squad. "I'll do my best."

Fraser nodded, paused by the door momentarily, wondering if he was doing the right thing leaving Turnbull in charge. No help for it... He made his way from the Consulate at a medium trot, heading to the station house. He didn't know who this man might be that Ray was talking about, or what he might have to say to him, but if he was in trouble he wanted to help.

…

I watched him, as he ran down the steps of the Consulate, straightening his hat. I knew where he was going. I knew more about him now than he ever could have guessed. He didn't know it then, but he was running straight into a wall, a car crash of a day.

You know, I could have almost pitied the man, but I wasn't yet ready to forgive.

So I stood, arms folded, as all around me pedestrians went about their business, unconcerned. I might as well have been invisible for all that any single one of them would care. Still in solitary, always alone. Cold in the wind of a Chicago winter's morning I stood and watched him go.


	2. Chapter 2

To Ray the man looked beaten. He had that desolate aspect you see on some homeless guys, the ones who have hit rock bottom, and who know that there is always further they can fall. This guy wasn't homeless though. His clothes were too good. Expensive suit and shoes. A casually loose grey Armani coat, with a button missing, and mud on the hem. The man's silk tie was unloosened round his neck and dangled like a slack noose. A smell of sweat and hopelessness hung round him like a haze. His hair was greasy, his face grey, and he hadn't shaved, or changed, or washed in at least a week. There was the tinge of a smoke smell to him, as though he'd been huddling round bonfires. And the charcoal smudge around his eyes told all too well that he hadn't slept.

"Is Constable Fraser going to be here soon?" he repeated.

"Yeah, yeah... he's on his way." Ray talked to him in the same voice he reserved for his nephews and nieces when they woke up, scared from some story book, crying in the night. Normally he would have tried to palm this guy off on someone else, the Duck brothers probably, because right now he was tying him up, preventing him from catching up on his paper work. But there was something about him. Ray felt for some obscure reason a kinship, or responsibility, though he couldn't have told anyone why. So he let him sit at his desk, brought him a cup of coffee as he waited. The coffee cooled as the man looked through it's blackness, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his coat. The clock clipped time away as the man remained slouched on the stiff backed chair.

And again he spoke. Those slate grey tones.

"Is Constable Fraser going to be here soon?"

Where is he, Ray thought, looking at the door. Why's he taking so long?

The clock told him that it wasn't long at all, but time yawned while the man waited, and Ray waited with him.

"Thank God," Ray said, and stood, gesturing to his friend. "Benny, this is who I was telling you about." He glanced at the man, who lifted his head slowly, stared at Benny. "I'm sorry, you didn't give your name," Ray continued, "but this is my partner, Constable Benton Fraser."

The man continued to stare, then said, in a whisper, "Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

"Yes," Fraser said, and pulled a chair around to sit opposite the man, nearly knee to knee. "I'm attached as a liaison officer to the Canadian Consulate... and you are?"

"I'm nobody," the man said. "Nobody even thought to tell me. I had to find out in the papers. The damned papers."

"I'm sorry," Benny's voice radiated concern. "I really don't know what you're talking about."

"No. Why would you? If it hadn't have been for you, none of this would have happened. I would still have had a life."

Fraser sat very still. Something in him told him to be careful, that this man was on a ledge, and the slightest mistake could send him down. His voice took on deep stillness, an expressive calm. "Please," he said gently, "if I've done anything to harm you, I'm sorry. Tell me what I can do to help."

"It's too late for that. You had her." The man looked at them suddenly showing some energy, his eyes burning with pain. "You could have stopped it then. But you had to be the hero, you had to save her." He leant right into Fraser's face. "You... you fool," he spat the word as though it were the greatest obscenity known to human tongue. "You didn't have to save her. You could have left her in the ice."

Fraser sat stunned with shock, and Ray stepped back as if from a blow.

Victoria.

"It's your fault," the man said, and pulled out a gun.

Everything went very quiet. Ray moved treacle slow to save his friend, a molasses dream without awakening, while between one heart beat and the next Fraser saw his own destruction in the barrel of the gun.

And the man gives a skeleton smile, turning his wrist. The gun pivots, slow as mountains, quick as a lash.

And gun pushed into his mouth he blew open his own head.

...

Clean up was a bitch. One moment the bullpen was ticking away, business as usual, Welsh in his element chewing out some rookies in his office. Next there was screaming and a shot, or a shot then screaming. He never did know which came first, Elaine screaming, or the sound of the gun.

He burst to his feet, and bolted out the office door.

Pandemonium.

"What, what the hell is going on?"

He pushed his way through the press of detectives that surrounded the scene, and there it was. The body.

Blood and brains and bits of skull. Fraser sitting bone white beneath the red and the grey and the pink, as though he'd come in from blood fouled water. Vecchio kneeling right in the mess of it, holding the body, as though he had thrown himself between the shooter and his friend, or as though he was trying to hold the body, save it from falling. As though he hadn't realised yet that the man was dead.

And nobody moved, forever, until Vecchio let go of the corpse, and it fell, slack and wet, into the pool of it's own filth.

…

Elaine was still vomiting in a bucket when Francesca found her.

"Elaine, what happened?"

"There was a … a shooting."

Frannie's hands flew to her throat. "Ray?" she asked, "Fraser?"

"They're okay. I mean to say... they weren't shot."

"So, why did you call me?" Frannie's voice was tight with alarm.

"They... they're through there," Elaine gestured weakly. "But don't... don't go in."

Frannie spun round, not listening, and ran through the door.

Ray was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall. He had been aiming at a chair, but then his legs had given way. Fraser stood in the middle of the room, having been propelled there by Lieutenant Welsh. He had been offered a seat but didn't appear to notice. He simply stood, at attention.

Both men were covered with blood.

Frannie screamed, and ran to Ray. His suit was slicked nearly black. There were streaks and patches of red on his face, what looked like oatmeal on his hair. She grabbed him by the arms, shook him, not noticing the blood that was now on her own skin. "Ray," she cried out, "Ray, wake up! Ray, come back."

Ray looked up at her, empty-eyed, and then incongruously, smiled. It looked horrible and alien on him, as though he'd forgotten what to do with his face, and was simply moving the muscles of his lips and cheeks in a failed attempt to calm his sister down.

"Hi Frannie," he said.

"Hi Ray," she bit back sobs. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes... yes. I'm quite all right." He sounded very un-Ray, as though he was telling a story on a long distance phone and couldn't remember his lines. His eyes slid off her and he stared at nothing, going blank again.

She turned then to Fraser, aware that her make-up was running, suddenly cognisant of the mess on her clothing, and she felt ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous and shallow to be thinking of her make-up at a time like this.

"Fraser?"

She took his arms and looked straight into his eyes. "Fraser?"

He didn't even blink.

The door opened, and Welsh stepped back in. "You shouldn't be here Francesca."

"Why not? What happened?"

Welsh sighed, and took pity.

"Some nut job came in, came in with some sob story, don't know what it was about yet. Said he had to see the Mountie, and when he turned up well... the guy just pulled a gun and shot himself."

"Why's there so much blood on them?"

"Well, your brother tried to get the gun off him. He was next to him when it happened, and Fraser was sitting right up close. They just got caught in the... in the shower, when the guy's head exploded."

"Oh God," Francesca suddenly understood why Elaine had been puking. She wasn't a police officer, she was a civilian aid, she hadn't seen much in the way of crime scenes. And then all of a sudden a thing like this happens.

"Oh God," Francesca said again, as she realised what the oatmeal in her brother's hair was.

"Oh God," she went slack at the knees, and hit the floor.

…

I knew what Frank was going to do before he did it. Oh, I have no delusions that I'm a good person, I know that I'm a bitch. My main gift is manipulation, it always has been. It's always had to be. I can wrap a man around my little finger. Not Frank though. Not any more... or so he thought. He thought he was immune, and I resented him, and her, for that. Until he met her I had him where I wanted, and then she came along, just like me only... happy. Well, all of a sudden he was beyond my control.

So I was glad, really, to be using him to punish Fraser with this. Ben, Benny, Benton. And that Ray Vecchio, it was just a bonus that he was sucked into it too.

"You hurt him, I'll kill you." I remember him saying that, absolutely. There's no love like that between two brothers, or so I've been told. Ray point blank threatened me, and I stared him in the face and knew that he meant every word.

"You hurt him, I'll kill you."

It was time, finally. My time. They hurt me, and I had my plans... I planned to do worse, much worse than kill them.

Fraser should never have introduced me to his friends.

…

Meg is up to her ears in phone calls. The higher ups keep calling to ask about the incident... "is it true that the perp asked for a Canadian officer by name? Do we know who the shooter was? What was the connection? Was he a Canadian citizen?" And when they find out that Constable Fraser was the officer involved they want to know how he had mishandled it, what he had done wrong, as though it was a given that it was somehow his fault.

Meg wants to scream down the phone at them, pompous arrogant asses. Before she met Fraser she had taken for granted that he deserved the poor opinion of his peers. She knew he had admirers in the force, but she assumed they were smitten by the glamour of the maverick. She suspected that he was a bit of a conman. Nobody could be that scrupulously clean. He must simply be clever enough to take people in.

She knows better now. Fraser is a Law Man. And these people, with their canapés and champagne flutes, dripping innuendoes like diamonds in their fur, how she despises them. What do they know about Mounties? About real police work, the guts of it, about crime scenes, pain? They have traded their inheritance for beluga caviare, swapped Politics for Law.

They have no right to even name him. How dare they condescend?

She curls her lip with contempt, and again answers the phone. Same questions, same responses, same plastic clap when she slams down the receiver.

A long drawn out battle, an excruciating day.

…

Ray remembered it in flashes. He remembered the gun, thinking that Fraser was going to be shot again, remembered a sideways leap, slow lunging through the air.

A body in his arms, head scooped out hollow, melon red, a gutted pumpkin of a man.

And Frannie, he was almost sure there had been Frannie, very far away.

He remembered the blue white, blue, the sound of a siren.

Fraser sitting opposite him, with an Arctic stare.

A greying man in green, writing on a clipboard.

And Fraser's face was splashed with red. The Red Guy.

And his own face in the window. Red Guy.

A lady from forensics wiped samples off his face. Tweezers in his hair, plucking and bagging shattered slivers of … slivered shatters of... what? What is that? (Skull, something whispered in his head, they're picking off the skull).

And a fat nurse was leaning over, sponging red off his neck. And how gentle she was, and how sorrowful her gaze.

And then when he opened his eyes he didn't have to remember any more. He was back in the stream of time, Ma sitting there by the window, with his pyjamas folded on her lap. Praying in Italian. So familiar her voice, and so wrong.

This was not something you could pray about.

…

Fraser remembered it in flashes. Himself fixed and rooted to the chair.

Ray flying diagonally between him and the man (the unman, the scoop, the gibber) gliding in slow motion like a basket ball replay.

He remembered knowing it was his fault, that he'd just killed Ray.

He remembered a blossom of red, and the sudden feel of salt warm rain.

He remembered Ray kneeling, with the unman in his arms.

He remembered …

He remembered the smell.

He remembered the taste of it.

And the blue white, blue, the sound of a siren.

And Ray sitting opposite him, masked in red.

And the lady from forensics who plucked brains from off his hair.

And cooperating numbly as they removed his clothes.

And the long slow slide of it when the doctor said, "just to calm him down."

He's calm as death. He knows his enemy, who it is that has returned.

Victoria.


	3. Chapter 3

Frannie had rallied herself, deciding that if Ray was going to go all to pieces it was her duty to pull him together. Okay, so she was embarrassed that she'd fainted, especially in front of Ray and Fraser... but they didn't exactly seem to notice, and besides, everyone was allowed one mistake.

That was hers. From now on she was going to be a rock, for both of them. She was Ma's daughter after all, a Vecchio woman, she could do that. She could be a rock.

She felt almost disappointed when she realised Ray and Fraser didn't actually need a rock. They were doing fine, and were to be released from hospital after twenty four hours. Of course she was glad they weren't ill, but still... she had wanted to be there for them.

Frannie did get to do her rock thing for Fraser though, firstly when she collected Diefenbaker from Fraser's place, and walked him back to the family home, and later when she returned to his apartment to get him a change of clothes. He didn't have much, but she'd enjoyed being able to help him. She took a little longer than she'd meant to, holding his clothes up against her body, while speculating what he'd look good in. She stroked the serge of his dress uniform, even though she knew that wasn't what he'd be wearing.

He'd look good in all of it, she thought, or none of it, and blushed.

In the end she brought him jeans, a black T-shirt, and a demin jacket to wear over the top. Unbuttoned, she thought, please let him wear the shirt unbuttoned. As she was leaving the apartment she suddenly remembered to grab his leather jacket.

There, you see, she was being a rock. Fraser would be grateful.

…

Frannie watched the door to the ward's bathroom, waiting for the moment when Fraser would emerge. She was lost in a daydream when Ray tapped her on the shoulder.

"You forgot to bring him shoes," her brother complained, "I mean, did it really escape your notice that they took everything except our boxers and socks?"

Frannie blushed, thinking of Fraser in his boxers and socks.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

"Yeah, right... you're just looking for an excuse to see him naked."

Frannie suddenly didn't feel very rock like at all. In fact, she felt like crying.

In fact, when she thought about it, she actually was crying.

Yes, she knew that sometimes she was a little forthright with Fraser, enjoyed a good look if she could get one. But right now she was really just trying to be a friend. Did Ray really think so little of her that he imagined all she was interested in was Fraser's skin? Even worse, what if he was right?

"Frannie, Frannie!" Ray sat on the edge of the bed next to her, and apologetically put an arm around her shoulder. "Don't cry."

"I'm not crying," she blubbered, and gave him a smack on his arm. "Well, I'm crying now, but only because you made me."

"I'm sorry Frannie," he sounded uncharacteristically patient with her. "I didn't mean to."

Great, now Ray was doing the rock thing.

"It's all right," she mumbled, wiping her face. "I just feel stupid, I forgot."

"Look, we have time for someone to pop out and get his shoes. We've got papers to sign before we can get out of here anyway... maybe Tony could go and get them."

"I wanted to do it," Frannie said in a small voice. "I wanted to be some help."

"You've been a great help," Ray said reassuringly.

"Oh," she looked at him hopefully. "What did I do?"

All of a sudden Ray placed one of his fractured memories... Frannie standing very far away, but holding on to him tight. That must have been yesterday, he thought, just after the... just after the...

He looked at Frannie, completely earnest. "I saw you yesterday," he said, "You were there for me."

Frannie put her head on his shoulder. He gave her a sideways squeeze and dropped a kiss on her hair.

"Thanks sis."

"That's okay Ray." She'd stopped crying so hard, and was just sniffing. When Benny stepped out of the bathroom she looked up and smiled.

...

Welsh shifted his bulk uncomfortably on his chair. He'd been trapped at the desk all day, and his whole spine was a tight twisted cord of pain. He put his hands behind him, closed them into a double fist, and leaned into it, massaging the small of his back.

He was already fantasising about the bath he was going to have tonight. For once he was going to be indulgent, use his wife's bath salts, and then afterwards pad about the house in slippers, in his dressing gown, with a glass of red wine.

She'd wonder what had hit him. He speculated for a moment whether it would give her ideas... part of him hoped it would, the other part thought that he'd prefer to just go to sleep. Well, he thought resignedly. Sleep would never have been an option even just a few years ago, no matter how bad his back was. He really ought to pay her more attention.

He thought of how she'd smile hopefully when he walked in the door, looking up at him as she took his coat, the tiptoe kiss to his chin as she asked about his day. He thought about how angry it sometimes made him that she still loved him, that she wanted to know so much about him. He couldn't tell her about his days. They were either inanely boring, or hideously complicated. And then of course there were days which were both... like today.

He looked at her picture on his desk, took it in his hands and sighed. It was hardly her fault. Neither of them had guessed what it would entail when he became a cop.

He decided that when he got home not only would he take an indulgent bath, he would indulge her. She spoke to her mother this time each week, and took the call out in the hall. He'd lay the table, put out candles for her, put a flower by her plate.

He couldn't cook, but a pizza would probably do. She'd know what he meant.

He smiled at the photo sadly. Old fondness died hard. He could make her happy, at least for a while.

There was a knock at the door. Hurriedly he put the picture down.

"Come in."

The door eased open, and Elaine stepped through. "You wanted me to tell you if detective Vecchio came back..."

"Yeah, yeah... I thought he'd try and pretend like nothing happened. Thanks for letting me know." As she turned to go he stood. "Elaine, I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Yes sir?" She stood in front of him like a school girl, hands clasped loosely in front of her waist.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay. That thing... it was a big thing you know." Internally he was kicking himself. He was calling it "the thing" now? He was really bad at this touchy feely stuff. "Are you seeing the counsellor?"

"Yes sir, in fact I'm seeing her again later today."

"Good, good. Well, you know, if you need anything... just let me know."

"Thank you sir." She bobbed her head nervously, and ducked out of the room.

That was one of the downsides of the job, the fact that everyone walked on egg shells around you. They had to, if you were to do the job. Yeah, that and the fact it put space between you and your wife. And you didn't have the easy camaraderie with your colleagues. You didn't have a partner, you had subordinates. Sometimes he hated being in charge.

He stepped into the bullpen. Ray was sitting at his desk as though two days ago nothing impossible and ugly had happened.

Being brusque and curmudgeonly about it was probably the best tack to take. If he treated the man with kid gloves it would just offend him.

"Vecchio," he commanded, "my office, now."

Ray raised his head at the sound of Welsh's voice, and a look of sullen rebellion came over him. Welsh stared at him pointedly, until Ray conceded defeat and pushed back his chair.

…

Fraser was running through the woods. Ma Vecchio was a lovely woman, but at the moment her hospitality seemed practically aggressive, and Fraser needed fresh air. He knew she was hurt when he said that he'd sooner be at his own apartment tonight, but when he reassured her that he would be having dinner with them tonight she let him go.

Perhaps she thought she could start work on him again over lasagne.

Poor Mrs Vecchio, Fraser felt guilty. She does so much, and tries so hard.

Today it was a weight on him though. He needed solititude.

So, Fraser was running through the woods, Diefenbaker with him, a flash of white weaving through the foliage. He had finally hit that point of grace where everything worked in sync, his heart, his breath, his body, the pounding of his feet. Thought and memory were washed away by the brightness of the day, the flashing interludes of light and shadow glittering through the trees as he moved rhythmically forward.

It was then that he saw her.

He stopped so suddenly that he staggered, skidded, went down on one knee.

There, half obscured by an oak tree, her sculpted face tousled by her hair.

His heart stopped for a moment, then beat like a broken bird. He opened his mouth. To call her? To call for help? To howl?

Nothing came out. He hugged himself, and squeezed his eyes shut against the awful clarity of the vision.

When he looked again she was gone. Diefenbaker was running to him, tail between his legs, whining like a pup. Fraser took him in his arms, let him cower there.

Fraser realised that he was whispering, "Dief, Dief... it's okay. I won't let her hurt you this time, I promise."

Thank God. Thank God for Dief.

If Dief hadn't been there Fraser didn't know that he could ever have spoken again.

…

"Vecchio," Welsh said bluntly, "I don't want you back at work now."

"But sir..."

"No buts, it's only been two days. There is no way you can pull your weight round here."

"Sir, there's nothing wrong with me, the hospital okayed me and I'm absolutely fine."

"You're not fine." Welsh defied Ray to disagree. "I saw you, remember? You had the guy's brain all over you, that's not something where you just shrug your shoulders and say, 'forget about it'."

"Actually sir, that's exactly what you do. You know this job, bad things are always going down. If every cop who saw something bad decided to take the day off nothing would ever get done."

"Listen, Vecchio, I know you think you have this all sorted out in your head, but I don't think you're completely clear on this." Welsh leaned forward, enunciating clearly and slowly. "I am in charge. You do what I tell you to. And I'm telling you to go home."

Vecchio sat with his arms folded across his chest, an aggressively mulish expression on his face.

"I want you to hand in a report on the incident, and that's it. That's all the work I want out of you for the next week." In a perfect world Welsh would have preferred Ray take more time off, but he didn't want to push him too far. "So, hand in that report, and then you're out of here. A week, starting tomorrow. You understand?"

"I have the report here," Ray threw it on the desk.

Welsh's eyes narrowed. The detective was walking a thin line, and didn't seem to notice. He could put up with a lot, but outright insubordination was just not something he could tolerate, even taking into account the stress Vecchio was obviously under.

The defiance continued. "And you know sir, I really think..."

"I don't give a monkey's what you think detective," Welsh snapped. "If you fight me on this I'll make it a month without pay."

Ray's mouth shut, and the fight went out of him. "All right sir," he conceded, "whatever you say."

I hate this job, Welsh thought, watching the detective go.

…

Meg Thatcher was also hating her job. She was having to liaise without her liaison officer, which was bad enough, but the fact that he was now subject to an investigation was just outrageous. "He didn't do anything wrong," she said, tersely, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"Why didn't he spot the gun?"

"The guy walked into a station house full of police. None of them saw the gun."

"Does he have some kind of explanation?"

"Read the damn report." Meg bit her tongue, then decided that she didn't regret it. "The guy looked harmless sitting there. Everyone said so. He had a big coat on, he was all hunched up, with the gun hidden in his pocket."

The voice on the other side of the phone was silent for a moment, the kind of silence which is so loud it fills a room.

"When the man pulled out the gun, why didn't he disarm him?"

"There wasn't time."

"He was sitting right next to him, according to the report."

"Sir, have you ever had a gun pulled on you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Constable Fraser's record is exemplary, I can assure you that he's been in difficult situations in the past, including times when his own life was in jeopardy, and he has always handled those cases with great professionalism." And courage, she thought to herself. "If he didn't disarm the shooter then it is only because there wasn't time."

"Your comments are duly noted."

"Thank you Sir."

"One last thing. Have we got any further information on who the shooter was?"

Meg sighed. She'd just received a fat manilla file full of what they had so far.

"They had hoped that the gun might have been legally purchased, so that they could trace an owner, but the serial number has been filed off. The finger prints weren't in any data base. All we can go on is dental records, and that will take a while." She pulled a face thinking about it. "They have to reconstruct the skull. It might take a little time."

"How long?"

"I don't know Sir. I've never been involved in a case like this before." And neither have you, idiot, she thought, but did not say.

"Well," the voice sounded disapproving. "Keep me up to date."

"Yes Sir, thank you Sir." And three bags full, she added to herself. She dropped the phone into it's cradle as though it were something filthy. She felt like washing her hands.

…

I recognised the very moment he saw me. He literally dropped to his knees. It was how I'd imagined it, but still... it was a strangely unsatisfying moment. He looked too much like the last time he had looked into my eyes. That bullet blow, his face going strange and far, and then him falling slowly out of my arms, and away.

He looked like that kneeling on the footpath. I didn't want to love him, didn't want to feel sorry for him. Didn't want to have leave him there alone.

But that wolf of his, snarling, obviously terrified, yet still slinking low, rounding up on me, as though to herd me straight to hell... I turned on the wolf and showed him what I had, bared my own teeth. The thing turned tail and ran.

Well, the wolf remembered.

And so did Ben.

...

Dinner at the Vecchio's was different. The children were on their best behaviour, the adults were polite. Ray tried to start a conversation with Fraser about the relative merits of national games, curling versus American Football, but Fraser wasn't really into it. No Inuit stories, no historical titbits, no twinkle in the eye. Even Dief wasn't himself. Not scrounging at the table or bouncing from diner to diner demanding treats. He lay between the legs of Fraser's chair, leaning heavily against his legs, muzzle hidden by his paws. Fraser absent mindedly kept stroking him, and stroking him. "You'll stroke him bald," Ray said, and Fraser blinked, and just said, "oh." He seemed dazed.

Ray drifted to a halt.

Frannie was trying to be helpful by ladling refills onto everybody's plates, regardless of whether they were still hungry or not. Ray was reminded of family dinners when Pa got home. There was a similar anxiety around the table then, the same weight of things not said.

Thank God Pa hadn't often been home.

Damn. He shook his head angry at himself. He just had to go and think about his father... He hadn't seen the man in months. He'd banished the old monster by simply refusing to look at him, telling him outright that he would no longer listen, he no longer cared.

If he'd known it was that easy to exorcise a ghost he'd have done it earlier.

So why think about the vicious old spook today of all days? He looked around the room, anxiously, just in case the old man was back.

He's not coming back, Ray told himself firmly. Shut up and enjoy your meal.

It was a good dinner. Why couldn't he enjoy it?

…

And for Fraser the food tasted of nothing, no texture, no smell. He put it in his face, and chewed, and swallowed, and praised politely, and passed the pepper.

He kept thinking of her face, dappled with shadows and sunlight, framed by her beautiful hair. Her dark eyes, and the expression in them, unreadable and fierce.


	4. Chapter 4

Ray was at a loss. He couldn't mope around the house all day, getting under Ma's feet, and he couldn't go to work. It hit him again how much his status had changed since he'd become a cop. Before that he could pal around with his old school friends. He could have gone to Joey's for a beer, or hung out with Big Al (named ironically for his diminutive size).

Well, the guys were still friendly enough when they saw him, but he could tell they were on their guard. It wasn't that they had actually done anything wrong, it's not like they were mobsters after all, but nobody felt comfortable around the cops.

Ray went for a walk to the park. It was a cold day. He pulled his woollen hat down over his ears and hunched his hands deep into his pockets, cursing his lack of foresight in not having brought gloves.

He thought of another man with his hands plunged deep into his coat. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and blew on them. It was frosty. He could see his breath smoke into the air.

"Yeah, I'm a genius," he muttered. "Go for a walk in the middle of a refrigerator why don't you? Benny would love this, probably feel just like home." He remembered Benny wrapping meat around him, in a real refrigerator. Nothing was ever normal these days. Imagine having your life saved because you were wrapped up in a horse?

Not that life ever had been normal. There were levels of crazy, after all, and police work was always going to be crazy. You had to expect the unexpected, and other clichés.

He flashed back again to the shooter, sitting dead already, asking was Constable Fraser there yet. It seemed unbelievable that they hadn't realised then what he planned to do, but he knew that was just the horror of hindsight editing the past.

There was no way they could have seen this one coming.

Ray hadn't yet got to the point where he could think, "poor guy", because every time he began to think it some image strobed through his brain that made him want to puke. And he was just angry with the bozo for putting him and Benny through it. The shooter wasn't even a guy any more, and the manner of his death had wiped him out. Ray knew that he had to get over it, he knew that he would have to deal with the implications of the man's accusations... ('your fault... left her on the ice')

Deliberately Ray put the thought out there. 'Poor guy.' He had been a human being after all.

"Remember man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

The man hadn't been dust. He'd been wet meat and the stink of gunfire.

Awh, Ray, stop it. Poor guy...

And then, having thought 'poor guy' he thought, 'bitch', because he knew Victoria, and knew that this was her fault.

He owed it to the poor guy to find out what the bitch had done to him. He'd seen the yawning depth of that woman's malice, and knew what extents she'd go to, what depths she could drag a man down to. Even a good man. Even Benny. Everyone else might have given up, but it woke in him again, the desire to track her down. The one place she couldn't be was here, even she wouldn't be insane enough to return to Chicago. But if she was still out there she could still hurt Benny, and Ray had made a promise to her about that.

"If you hurt him, I'll kill you."

Even in hiding she had somehow ruined that man's life enough to make him destroy himself. And even a thousand miles away she had managed to drag Fraser and Ray back into her madness.

That woman was a blizzard.

Ray had to make sure that she met justice, finally, for what she had done. What she had done to him, to Fraser.

And the poor guy.

Whoever he was.

…

I watched him, from a distance, as he stamped through the park, forcing a walk upon himself. You could tell that he wasn't enjoying it. His lips moved. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I could imagine. The face on him, he looked like he wanted to bite something bitter.

Well, so there he still was, Ray Vecchio, and I had him walking by himself on the coldest day of the year. Not working, all alone. Talking to himself.

I laughed. He looked like a crazy. He paused for a moment, lifted his head, listening. I stood still, not even breathing.

Nobody was going to see me unless I wanted them to. I had become the mistress of disguise. But still, for a moment he seemed troubled. Perhaps he felt the hairs on his arms go up, something walking over his grave. I don't know.

He looked over his shoulder, then shrugged and kept on walking. I stepped back behind the bushes and was gone.

…

It was Elaine's lunch break, and she was meeting Frannie for coffee.

"How you holding up," Frannie said.

"I'm okay, you?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You know how it is, you've got to be a rock."

Elaine wasn't quite sure what Frannie was talking about, but she nodded anyway.

"How's your brother doing?"

"He's driving Ma mad, she wants to baby him, and he's climbing the walls."

"Well, it's only a week."

"I'm sure it will seem longer."

There was a pause, while they ordered their drinks. Elaine had black coffee and cheese on toast. Frannie had chocolate cake, and frothy whipped something or other that came with sprinkles and marsh mallows.

"So," Elaine said, "we still don't know who the guy was."

"Nobody's got any idea?"

"People are thinking he might have been Canadian, he mentioned some case from Fraser's past."

Frannie nodded. She'd heard Ma and Ray talking about it in the kitchen, when they thought everyone was in the living room.

"He knew that madwoman, didn't he? The bank robber."

"Yes... well, that's what he said." Elaine paused, stirring her coffee idly. "And people are checking his clothes. He had a hand stitched suit, really expensive. They might be able to find out who made it."

"Yeah... I hope they find out who he was. Cause if you find out he was just some poor sap who forgot to take his medication, then Fraser and Ray can stop blaming themselves for it."

"I suppose."

Elaine was looking very tired. Frannie gave her a fork. "Hey, do you want some of my cake? It's too much for me."

"Thanks."

They sat together and ate cake, until it was time for Elaine to go back to work.

...

Despite the cold Fraser was sitting out on the platform of his fire escape, with the window propped open. Dief was still sticking close to him, and had followed him out. Fraser knuckled the little dent in the wolf's forehead, just the way he liked it. Dief groaned, and licked his hand.

"You saw her too, didn't you Dief?"

Dief wriggled his body closer to Fraser's side, and Fraser dropped an arm along the length of the furry body. Who's comforting whom, he thought. He stroked Dief's fur, and felt the scar tissue along his muzzle.

She shot Dief, he thought, amazed again at what she had done, what he had been prepared to forgive her for.

What was she doing in Chicago? It made no sense. Fraser raked his fingers through Dief's coat, causing him to wriggle with pleasure, and Fraser smiled. "Don't get used to it," he counselled the wolf, "we don't want you to go soft."

But really, what was she doing in Chicago? His mind kept turning back to it. Was she back for him? Wasn't she done with him yet? It should have been over. It was crazy for her to risk capture, just to mess with him one last time.

He closed his eyes. Pressed in his memory was a vision of the storm, the fury into which she ran rather than accept the consequence to action. And then, later... She had pursued vengeance with the zeal of a missionary, "repent or die," forcing her truth on those who had done her harm.

What harm had he done this time?

The answer came to him painfully. The man at Ray's desk, unmanned even before he became less than a man, a sack of bloody parts. That man looking at him, when his eyes were still in their sockets...

"This is your fault... you should have left her in the ice."

Fraser groaned, and Diefenbaker opened his eyes and whined.

"Don't worry Dief," Fraser said, "it's nothing." The dog looked up at him mournfully. "No, really, it's nothing."

Fraser never was much good at lying.

Below him children were playing on the pavement, kicking a ball through the scraps of paper and rubbish that blew against the wall. A little girl looked up, and waved at him.

"Hello Lucy," he called down.

"Are you having a good day?" she shouted up. "We're having a good day. Do you like my new ball? It's red."

"Yes Lucy, it's a very nice ball."

"You and your doggie can play with it sometime."

"Thank you Lucy. I'll remember that."

She blew him a kiss, and ran off with her friends.

Was he ever that small?

…

Well, she had to get it over with. Meg stood at the mirror, brushed her skirt, smoothing out wrinkles, patted her hair, and dabbed her lips with a finger to make sure they hadn't smudged.

Men didn't have to go through this ritual, she thought. Oh, they'd have to look smart, of course, but a woman had to be smart, and sexy... and also man enough to frighten off the sharks.

What she was wearing wasn't just a powder grey professional suit, or make-up... it was body armour.

Behind her office doors the enemy had gathered, with a lawyer, a psychiatrist, and copies of his personnel file.

Fraser, she thought, they'd come to tear down Fraser. One of her people, one of her best people. Not just a constable, but Ben.

She had no desire to face them.

Still. She was Inspector Thatcher, RCMP. And she looked every inch the part.

Okay, she'd have to do. She squared her shoulders, and stepped in for the fight.

…

"Constable Fraser."

He jumped. Looking through the window he saw Inspector Thatcher, standing in the middle of his floor. She walked towards him gravely, and he kept his eyes down, looking at her shoes.

"I'm sorry to barge into your place like this," she said, "but you don't have a phone, and this was something I wanted to tell you in person."

"Yes Sir?"

"I'm afraid that your position as liaison officer is temporarily suspended, pending an investigation."

"An investigation Sir?"

"Yes," she let out a deep frustrated sigh. "Some bigwig business man, Willard Smith, had a lot of money involved in that dam building scandal. He's got friends in high places... I think he's trying to have you discredited somehow. Though I can't see what you've done wrong."

She was standing at the window now, and he was ashamed to look up, because she was so very lovely in his shabby room. He remembered her words, the first time she saw it. "You live like this?"

Why did he live like this, he wondered. He could have afforded a better place. He could at least have afforded to make this place look liveable and warm.

Victoria had been there for such a short time, and she had filled the place with light, candles filling every corner.

And as with everything she did there were two reasons for that. He remembered now how she rubbed candle wax into her finger tips, making them slick and smooth. He thought it was a nervous habit. He should have realised. An old trick to obscure fingerprints. And when his back was turned she plucked and pinched every single hair, polished every surface, even the candles themselves, leaving not a trace behind.

He shut his eyes for shame. He remembered when he had woken to see Victoria in the kitchen, and how he had smiled, curled deeper into warmth, pretending to be sleeping. How he had been so happy to think that she was straightening the place up for him, playing mother.

She had been wiping her prints. Wiping her prints.

She made him her fool, and he let her.

"Constable Fraser?" Inspector Thatcher broke into his memories, and he opened his eyes. He realised he was sitting in his bare feet and scruffs. This was no way to present himself.

He stood, arms behind his back, and faced her through the glass.

"You're not on a drill," she said, and pushed the window all the way up, stepping through onto the fire escape.

She was very close.

He stepped back as far as he could, and steeled himself. He didn't look into her eyes. She was nothing like Victoria, but she stood too close.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, Constable, I just wanted to say... you're welcome to work at the Consulate, in a temporary capacity, as an administrative assistant, just while this thing is being cleared up."

"Yes Sir, thank you Sir."

"You'll have to have a psych evaluation."

"Understood."

There was a pause and then she stepped back through the open window into his room.

"I'll see you tomorrow Constable," she said. "Don't worry, I'm sure that you'll be cleared of any wrong doing."

"Thank you Sir."

He heard her shut the door. After a moment he stepped back through. He realised for the first time that his feet were cold.

He didn't want to be here, not now. He couldn't be in this room.

He put his boots on. "Come on Dief, let's go."

…

I saw the woman coming out onto the fire escape, and tightened my lips. He pulled away from her, but then he had pulled away from me once, and we know how that turned out. I would have to keep an eye on her.

About ten minutes later he was coming out of the building, Diefenbaker at his heels. He looked distracted, not quite dressed for the weather. I knew he had a cable knit sweater, and I knew where it hung in his closet. He was in his T-shirt and jeans.

Silly man, I thought, but still, it gave me some satisfaction. He was neglecting himself, and not even noticing it. If he didn't remember to go back in and put some proper clothes on, well I knew he'd feel the cold.

It didn't take much to follow him. I was always just where he wasn't looking. This part of it made me smile... how long could I follow him, and him not see?

I'd always been the invisible child, growing up, always wanted somebody, anybody, to notice me.

Being invisible has always had its advantages though. You can watch people, figure out their secret workings, and then without them knowing how it happened, you have them in your hand.

This I was good at. The chase. He'd already seen me once. And he hadn't even realised the worst of it yet... he had told no one. Without thinking of it, he was protecting me still.

Before this thing was over I would have him in my hand.


	5. Chapter 5

The morning saw Fraser in his red serge sitting at Turnbull's station, stamping routine forms. Turnbull was flustered, which is to say he was his normal self, but more so, and incredibly apologetic.

"I'm really sorry," he said for the umpteenth time. "I'm sure things will be back to normal soon..."

He was feeling particularly guilty because secretly he was quite pleased to have Fraser's office at his disposal, and part of him had wondered, for a moment, if there might be a promotion in the offing if his colleague had to leave.

Not that Fraser leaving bore thinking about. He enjoyed watching him walk around the place. And he was so polite, such a credit to the Mountie Code. "Maintain the right."

What was happening to him wasn't fair. It wasn't part of the Mountie Code. Turnbull might have secret ambitions at another's expense, but he had the decency to feel bad about it, and not act on it. Not when the other was Fraser.

So he flustered, and flapped, and apologised, fully aware, though he couldn't stop himself, that he was driving everybody mad.

Fraser was a gentleman though, and remained as courteous as ever. And Turnbull blushed, hiding his secrets, because that made him love the man just a little bit more.

…

Ray didn't get out of bed. Ma was rattling pans, and yelling at the children, and footsteps hammered up and down the stairs. Ray rolled on his side and pulled the pillow over his head.

Gradually the house fell silent, as the children went to school, or playgroup, and the adults went to work, or whatever business they were about. The radio went on, first music, then a religious channel. He groaned. "Awh, Ma, why?" The Angelus. Was it twelve o'clock already? The prayer droned on in Latin, his mother accompanying it, and Ray stuck his fingers in his ears. He could hear the automatic translation, in a Dublin accent, Sister Christine drilling it into them, her ruler ever at the ready.

"The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary,

And she conceived of the Holy Ghost..."

This stuff is never bloody ending... Now he's got it in his head in two languages, Ma and a dead nun duetting over two and a half decades.

Count your blessings Ray, at least she doesn't expect you to join in any more.

"Turn thou most gracious advocate thine eyes of mercy on us..."

"Ma!" he shocked himself by yelling out. "For the love of God, shuddup already!"

After the prayer was finished Ma came into his room with juice and pancakes, and didn't say a word.

That was somehow worse than the ticking off he'd have got as a kid.

"I'm not hungry Ma."

"I'll leave it for you Raimondo."

She leant over to kiss him, causing the mattress to buckle slightly under her weight. He squirmed, feeling stupid, feeling ten.

"Come down when you feel better." She patted his cheek, and left the room.

"That's it," Ray sat up and threw the pillow to the door. He stood up, and paced the room. "That's it, that's it, that's it. I'm going crazy here, I've got to do something..."

Twenty minutes later he was on the top step, kissing Ma on the cheek apologetically, and reassuring her that he was going to be all right. "I'm just going for a drive, okay?"

When he got out of town he floored it, and let the riv run to her full speed. Who cared if he was way over the speed limit? He'd just pull his badge, and say it was police business.

For a second he had a flash of his father in the passenger seat, and he slammed on the brakes.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Go away, go away, go away, he thought. I don't want you, you old bastard.

Damned stress, now he was seeing things.

When he opened his eyes the old man was gone.

…

Fraser felt as though he had been called into the headmaster's office. Or perhaps as prime suspect into an interview room for interrogation by the FBI.

Both of which had happened to him in the past.

He remembered Ray, months ago, giving him advice on how to pass a psych evaluation. Cram for it.

"Don't you think they'll know that you rehearsed your answers," he had said.

"They may suspect," Ray had replied slyly, "but they won't know for certain..."

Fraser smiled at the memory. The doctor looked up at him, and pursed her lips.

"I'm glad to see you're relaxed about this."

He'd already annoyed her, and he hadn't even opened his mouth yet.

Oh dear...

"You have a colourful personnel file," the doctor said, pen between her index and middle finger.

"Yes sir."

She looked at him, chewing the pen speculatively. "Is there anything you would like to get off your chest before we start?"

"Sir?"

"Do you have any concerns about your performance, any aspect of your life that you feel might be causing you anxiety at the moment?"

Fraser saw again in memory Victoria in the woods.

"I'm sorry Doctor, I don't know what you mean?"

"It's a perfectly simple question."

She had a lot of them.

The question that threw him was tossed in at the end, almost as an afterthought. "Do you ever see anything that isn't there?"

Oh dear...

"Well, by definition anything that I see is there, at least from my perspective, so subjectively speaking I can honestly say that, no, I never see anything that isn't there."

This was all a round about way for him to avoid confessing that sometimes he saw his father's ghost.

Thinking of which, where had he been recently? Fraser had developed a closer relationship with his father after his death than they had enjoyed in life. And … well, that was exactly the kind of thing he really shouldn't tell a psychiatrist, even if he did strive for honesty in life. Honesty didn't have to mean full disclosure after all.

"Are you trying to irritate me, Constable?"

"Oh no," Fraser declared earnestly. "That's certainly not my intention. I do know that nicotine withdrawal can make people rather agitated however, and I certainly don't want to add to your worries."

"Nicotine withdrawal..." she stared at him open jawed, then clamped her mouth shut. "All right then, explain. How do you know that I used to be a smoker?"

"Well, I assume you used to be a heavy smoker, because the knuckles on the index and middle fingers of your right hand have a slight yellowish tinge. However, your fingernails are chewed, which is odd, since there remain traces of a rather flattering nail varnish. Also, when asking questions you hold the pen as though it were a cigarette, and when listening to answers you have occasionally lifted the pen to your lips thusly..." he demonstrated with an imaginary pen, "indicating a residual urge to smoke."

She stared hard at him, then broke into a laugh.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with your observational skills. Not only do you not see things that aren't there, however subjectively you're speaking, you also see things that are there which nobody else would notice. You have quite a gift."

"Thank you."

She sat back and sighed. "Well, Constable, you're certainly unique, no two ways about it, but I suppose you're sane."

"I could have told you that." Fraser jumped. His father was sitting on the desk, in his full dress uniform, right under the doctor's nose.

"Thank you Sir," Fraser said, weakly. "Am I at liberty to leave?"

"Yes Constable." She waved him out.

A moment later he was in the space under the stairs where the janitor kept some of the cleaning supplies. If anyone came in he could pretend that he was looking for a light bulb.

"Dad," he hissed, "what are you doing here?"

"Well, I thought you were in trouble, you might need my help."

"I was in trouble days ago, why weren't you there?"

"You wouldn't let me in son."

"I wouldn't let you... you're saying this is my fault? You just pop up at the most inconvenient times, and it's my fault? For goodness sake Dad, that was a psychiatric exam! She was asking me if I see things, and up you pop! It doesn't say much for my mental health."

"Well, of course you see things son. You're not blind." His father suddenly looked concerned. "I mean, you're not blind are you? I know you have been before."

"No Dad, I'm not blind. I am however, in all probability, as mad as a hare."

"You heard the woman, she said she supposed you're sane."

"She supposed. And you believe her?"

The ghost looked rather put out. "Well, of course I do. Don't you?"

Fraser shut his eyes and shook his head. "That's it," he muttered. "I am officially away with the fairies."

"I don't see any fairies Fraser," the old man looked around him, concerned. "Do you?"

Fraser pulled a face at his Dad. "Oh please."

The ghost was gone.

"Wonderful," Fraser spoke to the dusty cobwebs. "Just what I need."

…

Elaine looked at the piece of paper that they had given her to file, and considered what to do. Nobody had told her not to keep Vecchio and Fraser informed after all. And Ray would be back in less than a week anyway. She was sure they'd want to know.

Glancing at Welsh's office she confirmed that he was occupied. That mound of paper work would probably keep the poor man pinned to his desk till doomsday.

She dialled furtively.

"Yeah... Ray, how you doing? Yeah, yeah... I'm great. Look, we got some news about the... about the guy." She nodded, still looking in Welsh's general direction. "Yeah, we found his tailor. We know who he is."

…

Ray floored it for the second time that day. This time it actually was police business, though he suspected the Lieutenant would be less than impressed if he found out that Ray was on a case. Particularly this case. God bless Elaine, he thought. Now he had something to tell Fraser.

…

"You're not supposed to be working for another five days Ray," Fraser pointed out.

"Strictly speaking I'm not to go into the office for another five days. He didn't actually tell me that I can't pursue a case elsewhere."

"You know that's not what he meant..."

"How do I know what he meant? How does anybody know what anybody means?"

"You won't be able to act in an official capacity for another five days. Any evidence you uncover about a hypothetical case won't be eligible in court, if they can say that you acted inappropriately."

"Yeah, right... that's where you come in."

"Excuse me?"

Ray shook his head. "You're still acting in your official capacity as an officer of the law."

"I'm an admin assistant Ray."

"You're still a Mountie, aren't you?"

"Well, yes Ray..."

"And don't you think we owe it to the poor guy?"

Fraser paused, then slowly nodded his head.

"Yes," he conceded, "I suppose we do."

"Okay then. So what's the problem?"

Fraser looked uncertain. Glancing to the left and right he gestured Ray to the janitor's closet.

"Jeez, Benny, what is it with you and closets? There's probably spiders as big as your fist under there."

"No... though I did spot one about the size of a conker."

Ray shook his head very firmly. "Step away from the closet."

Benny sighed, and stepped away. "Give me a minute Ray," he said, "I'll need permission to leave."

"What if you don't get it?"

"I'm sure it will be fine."

Fortunately for Fraser Thatcher was still feeling angry enough with her superiors that she took great pleasure in granting him leave. She didn't even ask him what he was going to do, she simply assumed that he was sick of grunt work.

"File a report when you get back," she reminded him.

"Yes Sir."

"You ready?" Ray was bouncing up and down on the soles of his feet in his urgency to get moving.

"Yes Ray."

"So, what did you want to tell me in the closet? I mean apart from 'look out for that giant man eating spider?'"

"Ah." Fraser walked carefully around the car, removing his hat. Sitting on the passenger side he wrung the Stetson between his hands anxiously.

That was surprising, Ray thought, settling behind the wheel. Fraser loved that hat. What was he mangling it for?

"You all right Frase?"

"Yes. Uhm... actually, no. Actually... yes, but... I mean no." Fraser shook his head. "I don't know what I mean."

"You're not being exactly clear you know. Are you okay or aren't you?"

Fraser turned on his seat, and spat it out.

"Ray, I saw Victoria in the woods."

"What?" Ray grabbed his friend and shook him. "When did this happen, why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, I don't know... I mean, at first I thought..." Fraser looked at his hat, ashamed. "I'm sorry Ray. I wasn't thinking. It was only for a moment, and when I couldn't find her I tried to pretend that she wasn't really there."

"But she was there, you're sure of that?"

"Yes Ray. Diefenbaker saw her."

"Did he get to bite her boney ass?"

Fraser swallowed, conflicted. He knew why Ray hated her, he knew that he should hate her himself, for what she had done to Diefenbaker alone, not to mention everything else. The hell she'd put Ray through. But he couldn't abide her being verbally abused. I'm still her fool, he thought, and pulled a face.

"No," he said. "Diefenbaker didn't get to bite her. She scared him. Scared him very badly as it happens."

"Bitch," Ray spat. "I'll kill her."

"That wouldn't be wise Ray. I think we'll just have to apprehend her."

"Have you told anyone else?"

"Well, no Ray, I have no evidence. And I don't think I would be believed, at this juncture. I mean, I must admit, I was surprised to see her in Chicago."

"I wouldn't put anything past that crazy..." Ray stopped himself. His friend was looking pained. "Don't tell me you still feel sorry for her?"

Fraser said nothing, and it spoke volumes.

"What, you still love her?" Ray knew the answer to this, but he was so angry with the whole situation that he wanted to punish Fraser with it anyway.

"Of course I do." Fraser flicked his hat out, punched it back into shape, and settled it on his head.

"How can you possibly love her?"

"Start the car Ray."

"I'm serious, how can you possibly love her, after what she put you through?"

"You know the answer to that Ray." Fraser looked at his friend with a strange expression on his face. "Love is a monster."


	6. Chapter 6

Is that Inuit for something? 'Love is a Monster'... What the hell does that even mean?

Ray knows exactly what it means.

Yeah, right Benny, thanks for that.

Ray's teeth are hurting. He is grinding them too hard. Ignoring the lights, ignoring his friend, he pushes the car hard to where they were going. Each passing stop sign just spurs him further on.

The poor guy. They were going to see where the poor guy lived.

"Ray," Benny is perched forward, his hands clenched upon his lap, doing the back seat driver dance, only from the passenger side... "Ray. Ray. Ray... Ray... RAY!"

"What?" Ray finally explodes at him. Benny leans across and grabs the wheel.

"Look where you're going," he cries, riding the pavement for a moment, narrowly missing a newspaper stand before they bump again onto the tarmac.

Ray grabs the wheel back, and swerves them into the correct lane. He's red with embarrassment, glad that nobody else had seen the near miss.

What the hell was wrong with him? He concentrates on his breathing, trying to calm down.

"Ray..." Fraser is still on at him. "I'm sorry, did I do anything wrong?"

"Just shut up, we're there." Ray refuses to look at his friend, and squeals to a halt. Fraser keeps staring at him, with that face (I'm Canadian, walk all over me you Yank schmuck, I'll still be kind.) No wonder the rest of the world wanted their daughters to marry Canadians, not Americans. "Leave me alone."

Fraser unbuckles his seat belt, and Ray thinks... really? Who cares about seatbelts? Once the government passes a law on it, perhaps... but not now. He might as well wear training wheels on his bike.

And then he thinks, 'This isn't the first time Fraser has been stuck in a car with me when I'm angry... of course he's gonna wear his seat belt.

And then he thinks, 'really? My driving is so bad that Canada's very own superhero has to wear a seat belt? What am I, the Lex Luthor of the open road?'

And then he takes a breath, and resolutely decides to stop thinking nonsense. Folderol, a Benny word, pops into his head.

Be honest, he thinks. You're only angry because of Victoria.

"Look, I'm sorry." He leaned on the wheel. "It just got to me, that's all. The whole Victoria thing."

"I understand Ray."

"I'm real sorry, I shouldn't be taking this out on you. Not you, of all people. It's just... I just want this to be over, that's all."

"I know Ray."

"Yeah, look who I'm telling. Come on Benny."

…

It wasn't actually a house. It more of a mansion... the lower floor of a mansion, to be precise, the more expensive and exclusive part of the building. The upstairs of the building was laid out very similarly, but half the expense, because walking up the stairs was apparently a burden to the impossibly rich.

"Hi," Ray was leaning on the wall, talking into a crackly speaker. The steel framed gates stood tall against them, black wrought iron with Tudor twirls. "I'm with the Chicago police department... here's my id." He held the badge up to the camera, knowing that the pixels would be blurred. People didn't realise yet that the technology lagged behind the promise of it. He could have held any old photo against the lens.

There was a click, and the gates opened before them.

"Okay," the gravel crunched softly beneath their feet as they walked up the long drive. "The guy really was rolling in it, and it seems like he had a happy life up until fairly recently. Married, no kids... then apparently his wife died."

"Do we know how?"

"Nah... so far we're only getting this from his tailor. I don't think this one is being seen as a top priority, they've not done a lot of checking into the details yet. I mean, the perp is our victim, it's not like there's a dangerous killer out there."

Fraser nodded. "We still need to know why he killed himself."

"Well, we know that, Victoria's tied in somehow, but nobody's gonna take it seriously unless we can provide some proof. And I mean real proof... everyone knows how that woman messed with us, they'll just think we're cracking up unless there's hard evidence involved."

The nearer they got to the place the more imposing it became, looming up before them like a tombstone. Finally they stood at the main door. Ray looked round and spread out his arms for help. Where was the tradesman's entrance? He couldn't find a bell anywhere. "Hey, where do I call for Lurch? There's never a zombie butler when you need one."

Fraser stepped smartly up to the large wooden door, and banged on it hard with his fist.

"I can't believe you did that... those aren't doors you knock on, they're doors you slam shut against angry villagers."

"Really Ray, they're just oak."

Ray shook his head. He knew that they had literally walked into this, but he was beginning to get a bad feeling.

Just as Fraser lifted his fist to knock again the door opened a crack. A very tall woman, an inch taller than Fraser in her flats, with a long square jawed face, stood before them.

"So," she said, having examined their credentials, "the police finally got here."

"We're very sorry for your loss Ma'am. Were you close to Mr Wilson?"

Fraser let out a tiny flinch, and Ray glanced at him sideways.

"As close as you'd expect." She was a cold bird, Ray thought. "I'm family," she continued, "as well as staff. My name's Sandra Wilson. We were cousins, I was his personal assistant. He paid me well."

"So, Miss Wilson, you mind if we come in?"

"Certainly." She stood aside. "This way," she said, and gestured to the seats. "Make yourselves at home."

"I see a lot of pictures of him and his wife," Ray said, "they had a happy marriage?"

"I believe so." The phone was ringing in the hall. "Do you mind? I have to take that."

As she spoke on the phone Fraser leant towards Ray and spoke in a low voice. "I know the connection to Victoria."

"You do? Spill it."

"You see the woman in the photos?" Ray nodded. "Does she look familiar to you?"

Ray looked. Now that he thought of it, the woman had a striking resemblance to...

"Her name is Alison Wilson, née Metcalfe. She's Victoria's sister. She was married to a Simon Wilson."

"So there is a connection... They didn't live in Chicago though..."

"No. But from what I understand he could afford to live anywhere. He must have had a reason to rent or buy this place."

"It's rented," Ray said. "He took the ground floor. Do you think..." Ray frowned, trying to put it together in his head, "do you think he might have helped Victoria get out of the US or something? Bought her a ticket to Italy or France or something, where she could make a fresh start?"

"It's possible, but seems unlikely. There can't have been any love lost between them. Victoria did fake her own death and assume her sister's identity after all. That must have been very difficult for him."

"Awh Frase..." Ray's feeling of concern was growing by the minute. "I just realised something really horrible... you're not going to like this."

"Go on Ray."

Ray was about to speak when the door opened again, Miss Wilson stepping back through.

"I'm sorry," she said, "there's a lot to remember when you're organising a funeral."

"It's okay Ma'am," Fraser said. "I understand you've got your hands full." He paused a beat, then asked "how did Mr Wilson cope when he thought his wife had left him?"

"Ah, you mean when that woman was running around pretending to be Alison." Contempt curled at her lip for a moment, and Ray slightly adjusted his opinion of her. She might care more than she was letting on. "He took it hard. Very hard. He couldn't understand why his wife would go to Canada still in love with him, and then suddenly stop talking to him altogether."

Wow, poor guy, Ray thought. He'd been through two bereavements... first he went through an inexplicable break up, then he discovered that his wife hadn't in fact left him at all... she'd died. A suspicion hardened in his mind, but he didn't express it yet. He looked across at his friend. Had the same thought crossed Benny's mind? If so he was keeping very calm about it.

"So," the woman looked at Fraser. "You're a long way from home in that red suit. But it makes sense that the Canadians would send someone."

"Well, we're not exactly here in an official capacity..."

"We just want to find out what happened, what made your cousin, Mr Wilson..." Ray was having difficulty saying it. "What made Mr Wilson..."

"Blow his head off?"

Ray winced. How could she be so brutal, and about her family at that?

"Oh," she said, "the penny just dropped... you're the guys who were there when he did it, aren't you?"

"Yes Ma'am." Fraser sounded apologetic about it. "I'm sorry we didn't stop him."

"He'd have done it sooner or later." She said dismissively, and shrugged. "I should have realised when I saw your badge, 'Benton Fraser'... the name escaped me. She used to write her sister, one long letter a month, when she was in prison. They'd grown up in different foster families, but Alison was so pleased to discover she had a sister." She sighed. "They fell out over Simon, as it happens. He was with Victoria first... well, he decided she was too much hard work. That's when she ran off and fell in with her bad crowd. You know, she blamed him for turning her into a bank robber?" She laughed, incredulously, "saying that if he'd been looking after her right then she'd never have had to take matters into her own hands."

Fraser looked away uncomfortably. Ray felt for him. It must be weird for Benny, sitting in the home of another man that Victoria had messed with.

"So," Ray said, "when Victoria got out her sister went up to meet her... and Mr Wilson never saw his wife again?"

"That's right."

"I don't suppose you remember the name of the police officers who brought him the news that his wife had died?"

"What do you want to know that for?" The woman sounded mildly amused, or perhaps just bored. Ray was irked.

"Well, there may a clue in the notes that has been overlooked..."

"You don't know?"

"Don't know what?"

"Nobody told him." All of a sudden her blasé façade crumbled. Real distress was in her voice. "We were in Canada, at a conference, and this trashy tabloid thing, 'true crime' and all that... well, that was the only thing we could find to read on the flight. And that's how he found out Alison was dead, that Victoria had stolen her identity. He saw it in the papers."

Ray and Fraser shared a frozen look, flashed back upon the same image. The grey man's final sputter of life before his lights went out forever, that moment of anger, the blaze in his eyes. "I had to find out in the papers," the man had said. "The damned papers."

"I'm sorry..." Fraser was clutching his hat by the brim, as though it were a shield.

"Yeah..." the woman pulled herself back together with a sniff. "You should be sorry. After that, well, he cracked up. I managed to get him to the doctor's, they tried him out in anti depressants etc... he just said that there was nothing wrong with him, he'd have to be mentally ill not to be upset that the woman who murdered his wife and assumed her identity was still out there."

Damn. Ray could have kicked himself. Now the word "murder" was out, and he hadn't had the chance to discuss the theory with Benny. He looked across at his friend. Apart from fiddling with the hat he seemed okay.

"May I ask how he responded to the discovery?" Fraser continued, politely.

"Badly, what do you think?"

"What I mean," Benny said carefully, "is that if I were as well off as your cousin, I would have retained the services of a very good private detective."

She nodded. "Yes, yes he did."

"Can we have the private dick's case notes?" Ray knew he was abrupt, but he couldn't help himself.

"Yes, yes. Of course...They're kept in a safety deposit box at the bank."

"Can you get them to me tomorrow?"

"Yes... do you want me to come down to the station?"

Better not, Ray thought, Welsh will blow a gasket.

Benny cleared his throat. "It would be easier if you could hand the information in to the Canadian Consulate, addressed to either myself or detective Vecchio."

"Certainly." She looked at him again, aggression not far beneath the surface. "You know, I realise it's wrong, but I can't help myself. You're a good man, you were just doing your job, and you were being a hero and all that... but I just can't stand the fact that you saved her. That she's still out there, ruining people's lives, and getting away with it."

Fraser looked at his hat and said nothing.

"Yeah, well. I'm not proud of myself." She stood, and gestured to the door, a clear signal of dismissal. "I'll get the files to the Consulate tomorrow."

…

As they walked back down the crunching drive Fraser felt a weight on his back, like the pressure of touch, right between his shoulder blades. He turned round, and there was nobody there.

"Benny," Ray paused, "you coming?"

"Yes Ray... I just..."

"What?"

"I just feel like there's something I overlooked. That there's still something in that house."

"You probably just feel the house looking at you. It's one of those houses. I'll have nightmares tonight that it's following me down the street."

"You have a colourful imagination Ray."

"Yes, yes I do."

Fraser was still staring back at the house.

"You okay Frase? I mean... I'm sorry she said about Victoria killing her sister, it's the first time anyone ever suggested it, so it must have come as a shock."

"Not really Ray. I first considered the possibility that she killed her sister when I was in hospital after the..."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"It wouldn't have helped the sister."

"So, what are you looking at?"

"I don't know Ray." He turned round and began tramping back to the car. Ray glanced back at the big old building, and felt his skin crawl.

There was a flash of movement in an upper window, and Ray frowned. Must be the other tenants.

Driving back he kept carefully within the speed limit, and after dropping Fraser at work he went to buy flowers for Ma.  
>...<p>

I stood at an upstairs window and watched them go.


	7. Chapter 7

Miss Wilson was as good as her word, turning up first thing in the morning with several fat files, bound together with twine.

"I've photocopied them for our records, but I would appreciate if I could get them back at some point."

"Thank you kindly, we'll get them back to you as soon as possible."

She shuffled for a moment, looking uncomfortable. "You know, what I said yesterday..."

"I understand," he said.

She looked at her feet. "Thank you," she replied. "It's just she wreaked so much havoc."

"Storms do that."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, I was thinking aloud."

"Well, anyway... I hope the notes help you find her."

She pulled her coat collar high, pulled her hat down over her ears, and stepped through the embassy doors into the grey hail.

…

Watching them in secret like this has its pleasures, but it hurts after a while. I'd been watching them for days, and they had such easy camaraderie, as though they'd known each other forever. So, Benny had family after all... and he'd fallen into it so easily. Tumbling through the ice into an alien world, he still landed on his feet. I've been falling forever, since the day I was born, and nobody ever treated me as family, not even my blood.

Oh, Alison loved me as best she could, I suppose. Out of duty, because we were sisters. But her life was nothing like my own. She was younger, so she didn't remember the reality of it, and then her foster parents became her true parents, while I bounced around so many times that I lost count of them. Maybe she was just a nicer kid, and that's why she found an adopter. I know it's why Simon chose her over me. There was no hope for me ever, I was damaged goods.

Alison never did learn to seduce or lie in order to survive. She didn't have to.

But you know, maybe I'm doing her an injustice. Maybe she was a better seducer, a better liar than I was. Because let's face it, when she walked into my life one day, wanting to reconnect, she got completely got under my skin. I took her at her word, let her into my life. And the next thing I knew she'd stolen everything, including poor Simon, without even seeming to try. "I'm sorry, we didn't mean to hurt you..." Of course they didn't. It's just what people do. I should have learned that already. Well, I know it now.

And here I am looking at Benny, after work, still in his brown uniform, sitting on a wonky swing set with a baby on his knee, singing in Inuit and letting her suck his chin.

He was the only one I ever thought really loved me. He was the only one I would have borne a child for, and there were a few weeks when I could pretend to myself that there might be some of him left in me, that perhaps there was a child.

I knew there was no truth in that, even at the time, but I dreamt it anyway. And then the dream was gone.

So I watched them in the long back yard of Vecchio's house, Ben sitting with that baby on his knee... what did they call her, Maria? And I couldn't stop thinking yet again of the baby that Ben and I never had.

At first I thought that I would pay a visit to Ben, but then I considered his wolf. I pictured its hackles raised and snarling, I pictured it howling, and bringing the whole building round my head. So I decided I could have more fun with Ray. He wouldn't be expecting me, and I knew that I could take him unaware and helpless.

That night I waited until all of his family were asleep, then smooth as a shadow I slipped in, glided up the stairs. I knew already that nobody would hear me. I remembered, from when I had stayed there before, the creak on the seventh step. This time it didn't creak beneath me.

Outside his bedroom door I stood, and smiled, relishing the moment before I stepped in.

…

They had worked until eleven at night, at which point Ray realised that Fraser had work in the morning, even if he didn't.

"Let's call it a night Frase, we can come to it fresh tomorrow."

"We're nearly there, I'm sure of it."

"Well, maybe... but you don't want to fall asleep at your desk tomorrow, with your evaluation coming up and all."

Fraser scratched his head. "I don't understand why he didn't take this to the police," he said, his mind pursuing the facts." 

"I don't think he trusted us, and you can't exactly blame him, I mean somebody fouled up somewhere, or he'd have been told about Victoria at the time."

"Procedural foul ups, while unfortunate facts of police work, do not negate the hard work of dedicated officers..."

"You see, there... right there. You sound so formal. Nobody wants to bring stuff like this to someone who's going to talk like a robot."

There was a gentle tap on the living room door, and Frannie put her head through, hopefully.

"Do either of you want a cup of coffee?" 

"Nah, Fraser has work in the morning." 

"So, what have you found out?"

Ray sighed. "We found out that the Metcalfe woman royally screwed this poor man. You know, she got a divorce settlement out of him while she was pretending to be his estranged wife? That's our best option to find her. She probably set up a bank account somewhere for emergency funds, and she'll have needed money when her diamond plans fell through."

Frannie gawped. "You're telling me the poor guy paid alimony to his sister in law?"

"Yes, and looking at these files it seems the investigator thought he was closing in on her."

"You've got to show these to Welsh."

"Yeah... that'll be fun."

Fraser pushed his chair back. "Ray, I think you're right... we have enough on our plates for tomorrow... I suspect that we should call it a night."

"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow at the consulate."

As it happened they met sooner than that.

...

It was impossible to sleep. Dief was lying on his pallet, tucked in under the blankets, and there was a cold wind knocking against the window. The pane rattled against the frame, and icy fingers squeezed through the gap. A sliver of moon gleamed unkindly through the glass. Fraser sighed, and put his hand on the window pane. It felt like a sheet of ice.

"Son." Fraser's father stood there, on the fire escape, dressed in his Arctic furs.

"Dad."

"Don't let her in."

Fraser knew who he meant.

"I don't mean to let her in."

"You didn't mean to last time."

"I won't make the same mistake twice."

"You said that last time too. You made a whole set of new mistakes instead."

"This time she's going to prison."

"Who knows where she's going?"

"What does that mean?"

"Have you checked on your Yank friend?"

"It's the middle of the night Dad, what do you mean?"

"Check on your friend."

His father was gone.

For a moment Fraser stood, frozen in indecision. A huge part of him believed that the ghost he saw was truly his father, but at the very same time he feared that the figure was just a comforting image that he had conjured up to keep his grief at bay.

But it had sounded like his father was trying to warn him about something.

It's three in the morning, he thought, Ray will kill me if I wake him up for nothing.

"Check on your friend," his father had said.

Fraser pulled on his clothes, shoved his feet into boots, and ran.

…

Ray found himself suddenly and inexplicably awake. He blinked at the darkness, trying, and failing, to ascertain what had woken him up.

"Hello?"

His limbs were heavy, he didn't feel right. Slowly he dragged himself up into a sitting position, propping his back against the head of his bed. Something was wrong. His heart was beating very hard.

"Hello?"

A long silence, and then a voice.

"Hello Ray. How have you been?"

Jesus Christ, he tried to say, but his tongue froze in his mouth. He remembered Sister Christine telling him that the name of the Lord drove away devils. It had never dawned on him before that a devil might drive away the 'name', even if he had not meant the name in prayer.

She was sitting on the end of his bed, like one of his childhood nightmares, with a death mask for a smile.

"Don't try to move," she said, "it won't do you any good."

…

Ray was screaming. Frannie rolled out of bed, half unconscious even as she hit the ground, and ran into his bedroom wielding a lamp.

"What, what...?"

"She was here."

"Who was here?"

"That crazy bitch."

"Where is she now?"

"She must have drugged me or something, I couldn't move." Ray tried to get out of bed, moving stiffly. He stood, briefly, then scissor jacked to the floor. Frannie ran and put her arm around him. "I'm all right, give me a minute..."

The door slammed open, and Ma came into the room, in her flannel dressing gown with a baseball bat.

"She's gone Ma," Frannie said... "Ray, did you see which way she went?"

"I couldn't, I couldn't move my head."

"I'm gonna kill the motherless cow," Frannie declared.

The room was filling up fast. Tony was there, and a couple of crying cousins who had just been wakened from sleep.

"We've got to find her first," Tony said. Within minutes everyone old enough to vote was scouring the house like a pan to see where Victoria might be hiding, or where she might have got in. Ray quickly regained control of his body... it must have been a short acting toxin.

"The only place I can think she could have got in is the dog flap," Tony said, "but she'd have to be pretty skinny..."

"We should get a dog," Frannie said, "maybe borrow Dief off of Fraser. He'd never have let her in."

Just as she spoke there came a gentle tap on the door. Tony lifted his finger to his lip and made his way down the hall. The tap came again, and he swung the door open, brandishing a wrench.

"Good morning Tony," Fraser was standing on the step. "Is everything all right?"

…

"So," Welsh spread his hands across the surface of his desk. "Let me get this right. Vecchio, you're telling me that Victoria Metcalfe broke into your bedroom last night?"

"Yes Sir."

"And she did something, but you can't quite remember what?"

"Yes Sir."

"And that she got in and out without anyone else seeing her, despite the fact that there are ten of you under the same roof?"

"Yes Sir."

"And she left no trace?"

"That's correct Sir."

"And you, Constable Fraser, you're telling me that you just decided at three o'clock in the morning to pay your friend a visit?"

"Yes Sir."

"May I enquire as to why?"

"I had a feeling that something was wrong..."

"You had a feeling?"

"Yes Sir."

"And you, Vecchio. You had an invisible visitor."

"She wasn't invisible Sir. She was sitting right on the bottom of my bed."

"Do you have these kinds of fantasies very often, detective?"

Ray felt his face flush dangerously hot. "This isn't funny Lieutenant," he said. "This crazy bitch is stalking us, Fraser and I have both seen her now."

"I'm sorry detective, but there's no evidence that she's anywhere near Chicago."

"Apart from two eye witnesses."

"That's not good enough. You both endured a tremendous shock, only a few days ago, and you have a prior history with this woman anyway, which undermines your credibility right now."

"Well, you didn't believe us last time, and we were still right."

Welsh sighed. "Look, all I can say is this. Forensics has found no evidence to back up your claim. No prints, no fibres, no other eye witnesses, and you have no drugs in your system."

"I'm telling you, it was her."

"I'll bear it in mind, detective, but we're not investigating a crime here."

"What about the information Wilson's detective tracked down? There are loads of clues in his case that might help us find out where she might have gone."

"I'll bear that in mind, and we are looking into it. But you're not on the case. In the mean time, put a lock on your bedroom door."

...

"Constable." Meg Thatcher opened her office door, and beckoned toward Fraser. "If you could give me a minute of your time?"

"Yes Sir." Fraser rose to his feet anxiously. He had been hoping that this moment would be put off for a little bit longer. He did not have high hopes for the outcome of the "investigation." It was like when a jury came in too quickly... you always knew that they'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. Hurriedly he tidied up the notes that he had been reading, and replaced them in the fat file.

"Fraser," the Inspector stood by her desk, fingers gently splayed on the polished wood. "I couldn't help but notice that you've been investigating the family circumstances of Mr Wilson, the suicide? Am I correct?"

"Uhm, yes Sir..." He blinked. That wasn't what he had been expecting.

"Do you think it's wise for you to be involved in the case, when you have such close links to it?" She lifted her eyebrows in a question. He looked back down at her hand, resting on the desk top. She was wearing a new nail polish. He preferred the old one, it was more subtle.

"I don't know Sir." Uncomfortably he ran his finger round his collar. "I do feel compelled to do what I can for the victim..."

"Don't think of him as the victim, if it helps. Think of him as the shooter."

"Yes Sir, but..."

"And Fraser, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there's a fugitive from justice on the loose, and you want to bring her in. But believe me, you're not the only cop in the world. So don't do anything stupid." Her tone of voice bellied her words. She sounded deeply sympathetic. He still didn't meet her eyes.

"Yes Sir," he said.

"And by 'stupid' I mean don't go getting yourself shot or nearly frozen to death dragging that woman back to jail. She's bad news. So you see that file you've got out there? Dump it. I don't want any departmental busy body getting to hear that you're in trouble because of that woman again."

"Understood Sir."

She held him in her gaze for a little while longer, to give her words time to sink in.

"Okay then," she released him. "You can go now, but get that file back to wherever it belongs. I don't want to see you working that case or having anything to do with that woman until we've dealt with these gossip mongers back home and made them see sense." 

"Yes Sir. Thank you Sir." He turned to leave, then paused. "Sir, if I am detained on police matters when I am returning the file..."

"Yes, fine." He'd already cleared his way through a truly unholy amount of paper work, and could hardly be accused of slacking off. When things got back to normal and Turnbull returned to his desk he would probably find his forms filled in triplicate for the next fortnight. She was beginning to find it hard to invent work for Fraser, and if she found the situation stressful, she could only imagine what it was doing to him.

Meg watched him go, and sighed to herself. Something in her bones told her that she had been talking to the wall.

Well, she'd done the best she could.

…

"You're just gonna have to ignore her Frase," Ray was sitting in his mother's kitchen, jittery from too much coffee and lack of sleep. "We know Victoria's back, but the way everyone's treating us, it's like we climbed out of the rubber room in clown shoes." He looked at Fraser with a humorous twist to his smile. "Of course, that's pretty normal these days."

"I must admit, I don't think we're being taken entirely seriously."

"I just keep getting the party line... which let's face it does make sense." Ray pulled his face. "They pointed out that she'd not want to risk coming to Chicago again, and that nobody's seen her here. I said well, something tipped that man over the edge, and they said that proved nothing. People commit suicide every day."

Fraser covered his eyes for a moment, rubbing them hard with the heels of his hands. "Sadly, yes they do." He sat back, straightening his posture into a more military fashion. "Well, let's bring Miss Wilson back her detective reports. And keep our eyes open."

"So we're going back to the house of horror... great. You get the stake, I'll get the garlic."

"You're going to cook with steak and garlic?"

"I'm going to what? Jeez, Benny... have you never seen a Christopher Lee film... hang on, don't answer that..."

The wind was sharp as they stepped out into the street. This time Ray had remembered to bring gloves.

"Come on," he grumbled under his breath, as the riv protested against the cold start. "That's a girl," he smiled as the engine kicked in."

"Does she respond to flattery Ray?"

"Yes she does," Ray checked the mirrors, and pulled away from the pavement.

The snow began to fall.


	8. Chapter 8

No sooner had they set off then Fraser suddenly decided that Diefenbaker could benefit from a run in the cold weather, and so they had detoured to his apartment to pick the wolf up. Dief lay now, stretched out on the back seat of Ray's car, flicking his ears and yipping in his sleep.

"He doesn't look like he wants a run Fraser," Ray said, "he looks like he wants a warm fire and a cup of cocoa."

"Chocolate isn't good for dogs, there are a number of toxins and potential allergens including..."

"Save it Benny, I was only joking."

"Understood."

Ray sighed. He knew that Fraser sometimes couldn't help himself and started dumping information compulsively when he was nervous. He did the same thing himself under pressure, only instead of spouting irrelevant facts he became spiky and sarcastic.

"You sure it's not you who needs the run?" Normal people put on tracksuits and trainers when they went for a run. Fraser just went on a whim, whether he was in full dress uniform or not, even in the middle of a sudden winter gale.

"Well, it will do me good Ray, but honestly, I was thinking how rarely the weather drops around here, compared to Dief's home territories. Some days he's more like a city dog than an Arctic Wolf. I thought we could run back to the consulate together. A run through the snow might help him remember who he is. "

And take your mind off things, Ray thought, but didn't say. Perhaps Benny needed to run with a wolf in order to remember that he wasn't a tame city dweller himself. Beneath the armour of his uniform, his reflex courtesies, the man was winter fierce.

"Okay then... once we've handed this thing back, if nothing else turns up, I'll drop you somewhere so you and Dief can go for that run."

"Thank you kindly Ray."

This time when they rang through on the intercom Miss Wilson opened the big gates so that they could drive the car up the drive. The snow was really coming down now, the flakes clinging to each other in feathery flocks. Ray remembered his grandmother, visiting the US for the first time, plucking the Christmas goose, and the royal trouble he got into for sneaking off with the sack full of feathers and dumping them over the side of the stairs. It had been worth it at the time to make his sisters squeal.

Nonna Risata he had called her. She could be stern, but she was always laughing. Every time he smelled cinnamon and oranges, every time the snow looked like feathers, he thought of her and smiled.

The door opened, and Miss Wilson gestured them in. Dief came in last, whining.

"Is that a..." 

"Yes Ma'am," Fraser replied helpfully. "He's an Arctic Wolf."

She blinked, and stepped back. "He brought the weather with him."

"Hey, don't worry about old Dief here," Ray said, adding, inaccurately, "he's a real pussy-cat." He gave Benny a warning glance, 'don't correct me, it was a metaphor okay?'

Fraser cleared his throat. "We're just here, really, to return your folder..."

"Thank you." She took the folder, and stood uncomfortably for a moment, unsure as to what hospitality demanded. "Is there anything you need...?"

"No thank you Ma'am. We just wanted to make sure you got this back. And also... just to reassure you that the police are following up on the leads to track Victoria down, and bring her to justice." 

"Thank you for your reassurances," she smiled bleakly, "but I'm not holding my breath."

Fraser acknowledged her statement with a nod, and turned to go.

Dief dropped into a crouch, and started to snarl.

"Diefenbaker..." Fraser and Ray spoke at the same time. The wolf's hackles continued to rise, and his muzzle became one long wrinkled snarl. Miss Wilson stepped backward in complete alarm.

"I'm sorry," Fraser was kneeling next to the wolf, staring in the direction of the long lupine gaze. "I don't know what's wrong with him... there's nothing there."

"Dief's never wrong," Ray said, "something's got him spooked."

Miss Wilson was standing flat against the wall, clutching the papers to her chest. "He's not going to go for me is he?"

"No..." Fraser rubbed his brow, puzzled. "It's almost like he's holding something at bay, as though he's hunting."

"Miss Wilson," Ray said, "does anyone else live in these premises?"

"No, it's just me since Simon died."

Dief was beginning to slink forward, belly low, hugging the floor. Ray and Fraser fell into step behind him. He was making for the stairs.

"What's upstairs Ma'am?"

"I don't know... nothing. I mean, nobody's renting up there any more."

Dief was now at the foot of the stairs.

"You mean to say there's nobody up there?" Ray's heart was stuttering in a cold clench.

"Nobody since July. Simon used to go up there sometimes... when he wanted to be alone. I know technically he shouldn't have done, but then he paid enough for this place, and nobody was complaining."

Dief was beginning to swarm up the steps, still snarling.

"There's nobody staying upstairs?" He looked at Fraser, face fixed with fright. "Benny, I saw someone in the window last time we were here."

Fraser nodded. "I felt as though someone was watching..."

"You mean there's someone up there?" Miss Wilson's voice was sharp with alarm. "You don't think it's her, do you? Please God, don't tell me that she's been here all along..."

"Ma'am, please don't panic. Do you have the key?"

"Just a minute." She disappeared into a side room, then came back with a jangling key chain. "It's one of these." Her hands were shaking. "You'll have to get it."

Silently Fraser and Ray mounted the stairs, turned left, following Dief, then paused outside the locked door. Fraser dropped to a crouch, peered at the size of the keyhole. He nodded, and picked the correct key from the bunch first time.

The door eased open. It should have creaked ominously, Ray thought as he drew his gun, that would have made sense.

"Do you smell that?"

"Yes," Ray wrinkled his nose. "It smells like there's been a fire in here." 

Fraser had a look of tight anxiety on his face. "It smells like petroleum and burnt meat."

Reaching his hand out he put on the light. Dief was still slinking down the corridor, along a moss thick deep piled rug. And yes, Ray thought, it was only correct that it should be the colour of blood. "See we've had the red carpet rolled out for us," he attempted to joke under his breath. They continued their muffled tread, in step together, following Dief's lead.

Suddenly there was a sharp yip, as though someone had stuck him with something sharp, and Diefenbaker was hurling himself against a mahogany door. Just as Fraser and Ray caught up to him the door flew open.

The stink rose up and hit them like a wave, and Ray, who was used to police work and had smelled a lot of bad things, felt the gorge rise in his throat.

Stepping through the doorway he and Fraser halted … freeze frame, stop.

Next to a radiator, the handcuff still attached to its right wrist, sat a skeleton, writhed in pain. The smoke had painted the walls and ceilings with greasy charcoal black, and the cuff was welded to the bone.

"Jeez..." Ray spoke first. "The bitch has been here... what the hell has she done now?"

Dief was lying on the floor now, snarl gone out of him, trembling at Fraser's heel.

"I don't know," Fraser spoke dully.

"Welsh isn't going to like that we've been here," Ray stated.

Fraser stood for a moment longer, looking blankly at the scene. Then he sighed, defeated. "Let's call it in."

…

"So, despite my making it perfectly clear to you that I didn't want you anywhere near this thing, you and the Mountie went ahead anyway?"

"Sir, we were just returning the woman's documents..."

"Anyone could have done that. You didn't have to go into the house and start chit chatting, did you?"

"With respect Sir, we did find a major clue..."

"Are you suggesting that everyone else on the force is so monumentally stupid that they can't find a clue by themselves?"

"No Sir, but..."

"Don't but me, detective... you are this close to being suspended without pay." Welsh raised his hand, index finger and thumb moving together in a pincer movement to demonstrate to Ray just how close he was. "I want your word, your absolute word, that you and the Mountie will back off."

"Yes Sir." Even as he spoke Ray had the sinking feeling that he was going to have to disobey, and it might yet cost him his career.

Welsh glared at him with barely concealed fury. "Dismissed."

…

"Dismissed." 

Followed by Diefenbaker Fraser stepped out of Inspector Thatcher's office, past the reception station where he had been working, and out into the whirl of white that had taken over the city. He understood her decision of course, but being suspended would not look good on his personnel file. He sighed. It went through his head for a moment that he might actually have to face life as an ordinary citizen, not a Mountie.

He couldn't imagine it. From his very earliest memories his definition of 'man' was based on the Mounties in his life. His father, Frobisher... Gerrard. He pulled a face thinking of Gerrard, the man who had been so close to him as a child, the man who betrayed and killed his father.

What was wrong with him? Why was it that he kept on loving people who betrayed him?

He blinked his eyes against the snow. Why did he have to think of Gerrard at a time like this?

At least he was finally in prison. Victoria was out there, somewhere, and it looked as though her crimes were escalating.

He turned to look at Dief, and signalled. He started at a trot, and Dief glided into perfect step beside him. He began to push his pace, speed up, cut a path through the bitter wind.

Together they ran, and they ran, and they ran.

…

Frannie was clearing up the plates, and Ma was doing "proper coffee" in the kitchen. The little blue light was hissing under the espresso maker, and the black aroma of fresh ground beans filled the house like incense.

"I can't believe we've both been dragged over the coals about this," Ray said, elbows on the table, licking garlic butter off his fingers. "You'd think they'd be glad we found something."

"I suspect that they're just trying to protect us."

Ray dabbed his fingers with a napkin, then tossed it onto his plate. "Yeah well, hell of a lot of good that'll do us if they don't even catch the crazy bitch."

Fraser flinched again, and Ray kicked himself. He could never get used to the depth of Fraser's forgiveness.

"At least," Fraser said, fiddling with a cocktail stick, "at least her trail isn't cold any more... they may actually track her down."

"She's here," Ray said with absolute certainty, "if they want to track her down they should just follow us. She'll show up."

Fraser idly speared an olive from a little bowl that Frannie hadn't yet tidied away.

"I suppose so..."

He stopped half way through his sentence. The olive dropped.

"Ray..."

"I see her," Ray stood abruptly, the chair clattering behind him, and drew his gun. "Get away from my friend," he said.

"Or what? You'll kill me?" Victoria was smiling, bending so close to Fraser that they almost touched, an aloof and cool amusement on her face.

"You heard me lady, get away from him right now, or I'll shoot."

Victoria leant in even closer to Fraser, cheek to cheek with him, as though posing for a photo, as though about to kiss him. "Go ahead," she said, "shoot. And if you miss again, if you shoot him again instead... well, it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Ray felt a leaden weight on his hands, as the memory of his last attempt to shoot this woman returned to his memory. He had aimed, aimed perfectly, and fired... and then there was Benny in the way.

The gun dropped to the table.

"Ray," his mother's voice came behind him.

"Ma, get out of here... don't let anyone else in."

"Ray," she said again.

"I'm telling you, get out of here, she's probably got a gun..."

"Ray." His mother's voice endured. "Ray, there's nobody there."

…

Fraser felt her face touch his own, fleet as feathers, and flinched against the cold.

Ray saw the skull beneath her skin, a guttering bone white smile.

Ma saw her boys, frozen, staring at the dark.

…

Ray came out of it first.

"You bitch," he said, in cold measured tones. "I hope you rot in hell, you dirty rotten bitch."

Benny flinched again, but Ray couldn't stop himself. "You deserve it."

"Oh Ray," she said, "where do you think I've been? Where do you think I've always been?"

"Well, if you're in hell just head on back there and leave us alone, you rotten piece of..." Ray pulled himself short when he caught Fraser's gaze.

His friend was sitting motionless at the table, beneath Victoria's gaze, grey and hollowed out with pain.

"Benny..."

Fraser looked up. "Victoria's dead, Ray." He blinked as though against sharp light. "It can never be fixed, there's nothing anyone can ever do for her ever again. She's gone."

…

It was sweet at first, the looks on their faces, their fear, but when Fraser spoke he reminded me, even more than Ray did, of what lay in wait for me, the torment that I would have to endure.

I moaned, and even Ma Vecchio heard it... Frannie in the kitchen obliviously clattering pans dropped a plate and screamed. Dief laid his ears flat and howled.

The old woman had started saying prayers which didn't bother me, but the look on Fraser's face did. His dull sad look had passed, and he was smiling. I didn't want him to smile, to be glad that I was gone. I wanted someone to mourn me, to grieve my loss... and he was the only one. The only one... And he was smiling.

"Benny," I said, and clawed at him as the wind between the worlds sharpened. He was still listening, smiling when he shouldn't. "Benny... help."

And the wind became a storm.

…

Benny is smiling. If I keep smiling, he thinks, then it isn't true. I'll wake up, and she'll still be breathing. Somewhere... if I don't believe it then it can't be true.

He knows that it is true.

Diefenbaker is howling at the night.


	9. Chapter 9

By the next morning Fraser and Ray had sufficiently recovered from their shock that they could compare notes. Fraser had slept fitfully on the couch, wearing Diefenbaker almost as a blanket. Now he was sitting in his shirt sleeves and braces, knuckling tiredness from his eyes.

"We really did see her," Ray finally conceded, reluctantly. He knew that he'd seen things he couldn't explain in the past... his old man for one thing, but this was the first time such a visitation had ever been confirmed to him by someone else. It made him profoundly uncomfortable.

"Yes Ray," Benny sounded as exhausted as he looked. "We really did see her."

"You know, my first thought was... 'great, bitch got what she deserved,' but now I'm thinking... how do you get rid of her? I mean the last thing either of us needs is her hanging around haunting us."

"I think..." Benny paused, "I think we've solved at least one mystery."

"What's that?"

"I think the body we found was probably hers."

Ray blinked for a moment, considering this possibility. "Yeah... yeah, now you mention it, yes, that makes sense. You remember Mr Wilson, before he... before he..."

"Before he killed himself Ray."

"Yeah, before he killed himself... Mr Wilson smelled of smoke."

"Yes, I should have put it together."

"I think he must have tracked her down, and decided to get his revenge for what she did to her sister."

Fraser looked sadly into the middle distance. "I hope she didn't kill her sister, that it was just an accident."

"Well, we'll never know for sure, unless she confesses to one of us, and I don't see how that will stand up in a court of law."

"Do you think she suffered, Victoria, at the end?"

Ray couldn't help himself. "Yeah, yeah... I hope she did."

Fraser said nothing.

"Look, I phoned Elaine, suggested that she drop a hint about the body being Victoria's... she'll do it discretely so people won't bite our heads off for being on the case."

Fraser nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Look... Frase, it's behind us now. It's not the end of the world."

"It is for her."

"Awh, Benny... don't do this to yourself. She made her own destiny. It wasn't your fault."

Fraser smiled, but shook his head.

…

It gave me hope, you know. To see that grief in him. To know that still in there, somewhere, there was sorrow. My whole life had been one long futility... it meant something that at least one person had ever truly cared.

I waited. Waited till Ray was talking on the phone to Elaine, till the only people left at home were Ray, Ma Vecchio, baby Maria and Fraser.

He was standing at the sink, cleaning dishes, when I made my presence known. He closed his eyes and shuddered as I poured all of my cold into his bones. I could see the hairs rise on his arm, the puckering white of his skin.

He smiled as though it had come as a warm relief.

"Hello, Victoria."

He turned at his station, and gazed directly at me. It was that far blue gaze that I remember so clearly, when he saved me from the ice. When he took off his top layer of winter furs, and wrapped me up warm, and walked ahead, cutting a way through the snow. Using his body as a plough, so that I could follow behind.

I loved him then.

He looked at me, and I looked at him. And I finally knew that he loved me. He loved me even still.

…

Ma Vecchio was about to open the door, when she heard Benny talking.

"Victoria, the only thing that's keeping you trapped is that you won't let go."

Mother of God, the old woman thinks, and steps backward, blessing herself.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I know what you did. I know what you planned to do."

She puts her hand into her pocket, to fish out her rosary beads. She starts praying under her breath, and steps into the kitchen.

Benny is kneeling, with his arms wrapped round a little girl. She's crying on his shoulder.

"Victoria," Benny's voice deepens into warmth. "You are forgiven. Always and forever forgiven."

There's a sudden rush of air, and her beads drop to the ground. As she stoops to pick them up there is a smell like roses.

…

The snow continued for its season, and was followed by the spring.

…

At first Ray thought he couldn't bear to go to this ceremony that Benny had arranged. The whole thing was over and done with anyway. They'd both been reprimanded, received formal warnings. They scraped through with their jobs intact, but still... it hadn't been an easy time.

The body did indeed turn out to be that of Victoria, and evidence proved clearly what had happened. Simon Wilson had tracked her down, then kidnapped and killed her in revenge for the supposed murder of her sister. Benny maintained that the death of her sister was an accident, after his final conversation with the ghost, and Ray believed him, for what it was worth.

And Fraser, being Benny, decided that the woman needed a decent funeral. She was put in the ground in winter, on a day when the snow was so bitter that the funeral directors had to hire out special equipment to clear the hole. Ray hadn't attended, and Benny had buried her alone.

It was spring before a stone could be laid, and Ray was irritated to discover that Fraser was going out one last time. She doesn't deserve this, Ray thought, still angry with her. He's doing far too much.

But Benny was his friend. And so, against his better judgement, he turned the wheel of his car and went right instead of left at the junction. He could afford to be ten minutes late for work.

He walked over the spring grass, enjoying the flowers which peeped out. There was Benny, in his dress uniform, up ahead. For a second he thought he saw another Mountie with him, but it must have been a trick of the light.

"Hey Frase," he said. "How's it going?"

"Things are good," said Fraser, and smiled.

Ray stood up beside his friend, at the woman's graveside, and finally saw what had been carved upon the tombstone. He blinked back against unexpected tears.

Her name, her dates, and one word.

"Forgiven."


End file.
